Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report Feature Highlights Recent Blog Entries

Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Also Included In: Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP
Article Date: 06 Oct 2008 - 0:00 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, "the worsening fiscal condition of the country makes health reform more, not less, important," in response to a piece by Mike Allen and Jim Vanedehi of Politico about challenges facing the next president, including the federal deficit.

Igor Volsky of the Center for American Progress Action Fund's Wonk Room discusses a recent study which found that "medical crises contribute to half of all home foreclosure filings."

Louise from Colorado Health Insurance Insider discusses current premiums in the individual health insurance market and suggests reforms -- such as a federal subsidy to high-risk pools or the creation of a federal high-risk pool -- instead of requiring guaranteed issue policies, which could result in increased premiums.

Trudy Lieberman of the Columbia Journalism Review's Campaign Desk posts another part of her series examining how the presidential nominees' health care proposals would affect "ordinary people."

Beth Cappell on the Health Access WebLog discusses the court ruling on required employer contributions in favor of the Healthy San Francisco program, which seeks to cover 82,000 uninsured city residents. Cappell adds that the program should stimulate the economy because an increase in "health benefits with reasonable out of pocket costs gives those families more disposable income." Julie Barnes on the New America Foundation's New Health Dialogue adds that the court ruling in favor may "encourage" and "embolden" other state and local health reform plans.

Gerrit Lansing of the Heritage Foundation's The Foundry expresses opposition to "a federal solution to affordable health care," adding, "those who think bureaucracy drives change don't appreciate the power of our economy to provide supply where there is demand."

Jeff Goldsmith on the Health Affairs Blog examines the Census Bureau's 2007 data on the uninsured and whether some characteristics of the demographic are changing.

Niko Karvounis on the Century Foundation's Health Beat Blog discusses some challenges facing the Medicaid program, including low reimbursement rates and disparities in health care.

Jason Shafrin of the Healthcare Economist hosted 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.

Insure Blog's Bob Vineyard discusses regulating health insurance rescissions and the difficulties with determining fraud vs. inadvertent mistakes made by members.

Jacob Goldstein on the Wall Street Journal's Health Blog talks to hospital officials about ways the financial crisis is affecting the hospital sector.

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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