Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report Feature Highlights Recent Blog Entries

Main Category: Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP
Also Included In: IT / Internet / E-mail;  Health Insurance / Medical Insurance;  Public Health
Article Date: 16 Jul 2008 - 10:00 PST

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While mainstream news coverage is still a primary source of information for the latest in policy debates and the health care marketplace, online blogs have become a significant part of the media landscape, often presenting new perspectives on policy issues and drawing attention to under-reported topics. To provide complete coverage of health policy issues, the Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report offers readers a window into the world of blogs in a roundup of health policy-related blog posts. "Blog Watch," published on Tuesdays and Fridays, tracks a wide range of blogs, providing a brief description and relevant links for highlighted posts.

The American Prospect's Ezra Klein calls strategic challenges facing single-payer health care advocates a "difficult tightrope."

Rob Cunningham of the Health Affairs Blog discusses provisions of Medicare legislation that deal with Medicare Advantage private fee-for-service plans and says political fights from "the last two weeks [have] shown how difficult it can be to bring such a runaway policy under control once it has acquired a life of its own."

Bob Laszewski of Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review writes an overview of some health insurance market dynamics of the last 20 years, saying that "the most recent 15 years of this 20-year view of health insurance premium increases demonstrates more a health care cost trend cycle than an underwriting cycle." Laszewski also predicts that "health plans [will] face an earnings head wind instead of the nice tail wind they benefited from in the 2003-2007 period."

Insure Blog's Bob Vineyard discusses cases where patients exceeded lifetime health insurance maximum benefits and says that it "is not a legislative issue. Rather, it is a matter of educating the public about health care and its costs."

Joanne Kenen of the New America Foundation's New Health Dialogue reports on an Association of Health Care Journalists webcast and discusses whether the underinsured might "be a force in the November elections," with health care representing a "big part of people's economic anxieties and burdens."

Jonathan Cohn from The New Republic's The Plank points to an article where he discusses the Physicians for a National Health Program's recent criticism of Health Care for America Now, a national campaign that calls for access to comprehensive, affordable health care in the U.S.

Sarah Arnquist of The Health Care Blog discusses comparative effectiveness research and how to simplify explanations of the concept for nonpolicy experts.

Don McCanne from Physicians for a National Health Program Blog disagrees with suggestions that the Dutch health care system -- in which the government gives vouchers to purchase insurance from for-profit or not-for-profit insurers -- is a model for U.S. health care reform.

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

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