Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report Feature Highlights Recent Blog Entries

Main Category: Public Health
Also Included In: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Article Date: 11 Aug 2008 - 12:00 PDT

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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 discusses U.S. government health spending, saying that "we've managed to offload an incredible amount of spending onto government but done so in a way that ensures the government can't use its size or regulatory power to cut spending growth or produce a manageable, moral health system."

Michael Cannon from Cato@Liberty argues that the uninsured are not "free riders" in part because "it's not at all clear that when people don't buy health insurance, they are imposing costs on the rest of us."

Igor Volsky from the Center for American Progress Action Fund's Wonk Room Blog says that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain's (Ariz.) health plan "would remove the employer's incentive to provide coverage and could potentially unravel the current system." Volsky disagrees with Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's chief domestic policy adviser, who on Thursday said that McCain's plan would "buttress ... the traditional source of health insurance, which is employers."

Gert Westert on the Health Affairs Blog provides an overview of the Dutch health system, which many have suggested could be a model for the U.S.

The Health Care Blog's Matthew Holt writes about a presentation by Andrew Dillon, head of the United Kingdom's National Institute for Clinical Excellence, on methods the agency uses to compare cost and clinical effectiveness. Holt also expresses skepticism that a similar agency could "be established or even survive" in the U.S.

Lindsay Tucker from Health Care for All's A Healthy Blog writes that Massachusetts health reform "has been successful -- and continues to be," in response to a New York Times article about insurance coverage and chronic disease that quoted an expert saying, "the state experiments have all failed because of cost."

Bob Laszewski from Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review hosts the most recent edition of Health Wonk Review, a biweekly compendium of more than two dozen health policy, infrastructure, insurance, technology and managed care bloggers. A different participant's blog hosts each issue.

Health Populi's Jane Sarasohn-Kahn responds to a new survey by the ERISA Industry Committee and the National Association of Manufacturers that finds only 30% of employers measure the results of their wellness programs. She writes that more data is needed to discern which incentives work best for different wellness components.

Conn Carroll from the Heritage Foundation's The Foundry writes that "libertarians may have plenty of other grounds to criticize McCain on, but on health care McCain is advocating a libertarian vision." Carroll disagrees with an article from Reason that says "neither party wants change in the current system."

Insure Blog's Bob Vineyard discusses high deductibles and low annual limits in the Healthy Indiana Plan and asks, "[R]ather than creating a special plan just for the 130,000 uninsured, why not use the tax money to subsidize the purchase of health insurance plans that already exist in the marketplace? Isn't that a better use of resources?"

Joe Paduda from Managed Care Matters disagrees with blogger Catron's (here) use of statistics from a recent Lancet study that finds the U.S. has the highest rates of survival for certain cancers.

Joanne Kenen from the Century Foundation's New Health Dialogue discusses Kentucky's efforts to reduce health costs by recruiting eligible state employees and retirees into disease management programs offered by the state's Employees Health Plan.

Jacob Goldstein of the Wall Street Journal's Health Blog discusses secrecy surrounding FDA's rejection of drug applications.

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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