Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report Feature Highlights Recent Blog Entries

Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Also Included In: Public Health
Article Date: 22 Sep 2008 - 5:00 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 writes that funding health reform will be "a problem" in the current economic climate and notes that Sen. Ron Wyden's (D-Ore.) health reform proposal, the Healthy Americans Act (S 334), "[saves] money by restructuring the system," although the plan calls for changes Klein believes would be politically challenging to pass.

Igor Volsky of the Center for American Progress Action Fund's Wonk Room discusses Elizabeth Edwards' testimony on health reform to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health. Edwards said that "the individual market is notorious in its poor provision of coverage" and argued that reform should "address health care for all and cost containment simultaneously."

Jaan Sidorov of the Disease Management Care Blog 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.

Merrill Goozner of Gooz News writes that "comparative cost-effectiveness information" is key to controlling rising health costs and that "we can actually improve care by eliminating some of the very expensive but marginally useful medical expenditures."

Anthony Wright on the Health Access Weblog discusses attempts to reform the individual health insurance market, saying, "I am hesitant to shift people there wholesale unless we can prove that it can work."

Ronald Weiss on the Health Affairs Blog discusses personalized medicine and its potential for improving quality and lowering health costs.

The Health Business Blog's David Williams discusses the presidential nominees' positions on expanding public health insurance programs.

Health Populi's Jane Sarasohn-Kahn discusses a survey of employers that found the vast majority believe employees prefer to get insurance from their employer and that the employers surveyed do not support changes to the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

Insure Blog's H.G. Stern writes that data on high deductible health plan enrollment indicate "a growing acceptance of consumer-centric health care."

Julie Barnes of the New America Foundation's New Health Dialogue discusses a NAF event on health reform and entitlement spending and notes that panelists agreed on the need to reduce costs.

Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic's The Plank discusses the consequences of Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain's (Ariz.) proposal to remove the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored insurance in response to a new Health Affairs article examining McCain's health proposal. Cohn concludes that "the tax break would not keep up with the rising cost of medical insurance ... [and] the overall rate of people without insurance would climb."

John Geyman on the Physicians for a National Health Program Blog writes that statistics on the U.S. health care system show "conservative market policies fail the public interest."

Julia Eisman on Families USA's Stand Up for Health Care notes that average deductibles rose between 2003 and 2007 and employers faced with rising health costs are shifting them to workers.

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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