Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report Feature Highlights Recent Blog Entries

Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Article Date: 29 Sep 2008 - 9:00 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 addresses the potential for adverse selection among health plans in a proposal such as the Healthy Americans Act -- sponsored by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Bob Bennett (R-Utah) -- which would allow a mix of different types of plans. Klein suggests the bill's approach of risk adjustment across plans may be preferable to trying to "excise health savings accounts from a reformed system."

Louise from Colorado Health Insurance Insider discusses a new survey on employer health benefits from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust, suggesting that modest premium increases are not "likely to become a trend" and that one reason for the increases is that policies offered by small businesses are starting to resemble products in the nongroup market with higher deductibles. Paul Testa of the New America Foundation's New Health Dialogue writes that a New York Times article about the employer survey and a new Center for Studying Health System Change study on problems paying medical bills "paints a stark picture" of what might happen if health reform is not implemented.

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." According to Lieberman, the media has not been covering the campaign from this angle.

The Health Affairs Blog posts responses to recent articles published about the presidential nominees' health proposals: an author's roundtable (here) and rebuttals to the articles about Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain's (Ariz.) plan by Tom Miller (here) and Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama's (Ill.) plan by David Cutler (here).

The Health Care Blog's Jocelyn Guyer discusses recent state efforts to expand children's health insurance.

Bob Laszewski on Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review writes that because of the economic and political environment, the chance for health reform "is now zero," and asks, "What are [the presidential nominees'] plans to reform health care that actually make sense and can be implemented in the face of all of the things [the economic] crisis has changed?"

Health Populi's Jane Sarasohn-Kahn discusses reports of Americans having problems paying medical bills.

Insure Blog's H. G. Stern argues that columnist Sally Pipes' estimate of the number of uninsured, which is much smaller than official estimates, "puts the lie to the canard that our system is irretrievably broken."

Joe Paduda on Managed Care Matters says that although Obama's health care plan would encourage more people to get health insurance, it "doesn't do enough to control costs."

Jacob Goldstein on the Wall Street Journal's Health Blog discusses a new AARP study that found the price of "specialty" pharmaceuticals is rising faster than other types of prescription drugs.

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.

© 2008 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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