Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report Feature Highlights Recent Blog Entries
"Blog Watch" offers readers a roundup of health policy-related blog posts
The American Prospect's Ezra Klein points to a report that Howard Dean might campaign for the inclusion of a public plan option in health reform legislation. Klein says, "Though I'm glad to see progressives fighting for it, it shouldn't become the be-all, end-all determinant of success."
Louise of Colorado Health Insurance Insider looks at a Colorado bill proposing to ban insurers from charging men and women of similar health status different premiums and says, "While I can see the point of the legislation in terms of fairness, it doesn't seem fair to penalize men by making them pay more for their health insurance even when as a group they seek medical care less often."
Trudy Lieberman of the Columbia Journalism Review's Campaign Desk looks at media coverage of an announcement that insurers would be willing to end the practice of charging different premiums based on individuals' health status and says that "there's more that reporters eager to explore the story should know." Insure Blog's Bob Vineyard says the "bad news is that EVERYONE pays a higher premium."
Hygeia of Disruptive Women in Health Care posts "10 Things You Need to Know About the Health Care Stimulus."
John Goodman of his eponymous blog links to a literature review where he and colleagues found "public policy articles in the leading health journals (especially the health policy journals) tend to cite poorly done studies over and over again."
Bob Laszewski of Health Care Policy and Market Place Review examines Obama's proposed funding for part of health reform legislation and says, "Since there aren't any extra dollars elsewhere in the budget, it's a good assumption any cuts to pay for health care reform are going to have to come from the health care budget itself." Laszewski estimates that an additional $1.2 trillion dollars in funding is necessary.
Avery Comarow of Newsweek's Comarow on Quality asks whether health information technology spending is worth the stimulus investment of $30 billion and considers some unknowns of health IT.
Anthony Wright on the New Republic's The Treatment continues the conversation about Massachusetts health reform as a model for national reform, drawing from his experience with health overhaul legislation in California. Wright says that "the nation's needs dictate a policy solution that is bigger and bolder, and just simply different."
Don McCanne of Physicians for a National Health Program says there is no longer a national debate about comprehensive health reform because it is now about adding "one more plan, a public plan, to our dysfunctional, fragmented, multi-payer system that costs so much and serves us so poorly."
