Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report Feature Highlights Recent Blog Entries

"Blog Watch" offers readers a roundup of health policy-related blog posts.

Maggie Mahar of the Century Foundation's Health Beat Blog looks at Families USA Director Ron Pollack's comments on "intractable differences" between the health insurance industry and health reform.

David Williams of the Health Business Blog 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.

Rob Cunningham on the Health Affairs Blog looks at partisan disagreements over a public plan option in health reform and notes that "fear and loathing of public-sector solutions in health care remains powerful, as it has been for most of the past century. It may be the ultimate test of the new president's dream of post-partisanship."

Managed Care Matters' Joe Paduda says that some bipartisan support for CHIP reauthorization legislation "is a positive signal for reform advocates."

Marilyn Werber Serafini of the National Journal's Health Care Expert Blog looks at provisions in the economic stimulus legislation that would allow unemployed individuals to enroll in Medicaid and asks, "Is this a good idea? And, in the long term, in which direction should Washington be steering Medicaid?" Responders include Henry Aaron, Karen Davis, Ron Pollack, Jason Rosenbaum, Raymond Scheppach, Donna Shalala, Andy Stern and Grace-Marie Turner.

Harold Pollack on the New Republic's The Treatment looks at efforts to remove some health-related funds from the stimulus bill and notes, "Although many interest groups and many politicians claim to support public health and prevention, few care quite enough to support these values once the shoving starts."

Several bloggers commented on Tom Daschle's withdrawal of his HHS nomination:

• Bob Laszewski of Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review: "This will set the health care debate back months, not weeks. He was also a skilled and pragmatic legislator and could well have done a good job managing the president's left flank."
  
  
• Len Nichols on the New America Foundation's New Health Dialogue: Calling the withdrawal a "bump in the road," Nichols writes that "it is useful to remember that the health reform debate is far larger than any one man or woman and the underlying reasons for reform are unchanged and compelling."
  
  
• Rob Cunningham on the Health Affairs Blog: "So in the short term, at least, Daschle's withdrawal means that the administration will have trouble storming out of the gate with health reform as soon as the stimulus package is launched."
  
  
• Gooz News' Merrill Goozner: "He must have realized that any effort to pursue serious health care reform this year would run into allegations that his financial relationships influenced the administration's decisions."
  
  
• Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic's The Treatment: "Losing Daschle means giving up a very good political asset, yes. But ... his political value was rapidly diminishing anyway. Less certain is how Daschle's loss affects health care's place in the Obama agenda."