If you’re just reading the headlines, jobs and the economy have displaced access to affordable health insurance as the electorate’s top domestic concern with six months to go until Election Day. But digging a little deeper into the results of a new poll from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, it appears that voters also believe […]

Jason Shafrin of the blog, Healthcare Economist, hosts this week’s Health Wonk Review. He’s written the biweekly round-up of the best of health policy blogging in “newspaper” format. It’s a great quick scan of what’s being debated in the health business and policy blogs, with Health Affairs Blog providing the lead story on health reform and the ‘08 […]

The Netherlands, which combines mandatory universal health insurance with competition among private health insurers, has been frequently cited as a possible model for reform in the United States. You can read Wynand van de Ven and Frederik Schut’s examination of the Dutch experience (free access until May 27) in the May/June issue of Health Affairs, a thematic […]

By proposing to move away from the employer-based health care system to one emphasizing the individual market, Sen. John McCain (AZ), the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has set the stage for health care to become part of a major debate about government and the marketplace during this year’s election, Robert Blendon said May 5.
Blendon, a […]

Editor’s Note: In connection with the publication of its May/June issue, a thematic issue on health reform, Health Affairs organized a May 5 conference call on the role of health reform in the presidential election. The call was moderated by Health Affairs editor-in-chief Susan Dentzer. Participants included Robert Blendon, a professor of health policy and political […]

What role will the issue of health care reform play in the 2008 presidential election? How would the candidates control rising health costs and cover the uninsured, and how will the economic downturn affect efforts to expand access? Would the candidates’ reform proposals fix the health system’s flaws? What lessons can be drawn from previous […]

In May 2007, Indiana enacted comprehensive health reform in the form of the Indiana Check-Up Plan and its centerpiece, the Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP). After intense negotiations, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services granted Indiana the 1115b waiver required for the plan to go into effect in December 2007, and within three months over […]

UnitedHealth Group officials may have been laying protective cover for themselves when they attributed poor first-quarter earnings to a sagging economy last week. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t also true, as United said, that business is bad because the company’s products are getting too expensive for a growing number of workers and companies. Coming within […]

In interviews with Health Affairs, government ministers in Germany and the Netherlands talk up market-oriented refinements to their universal health insurance systems for the future. But the news from Europe isn’t all happy: an unsettling survey in the United Kingdom finds that some physicians believe that the market will unravel the government-owned and -operated National […]

Editor’s Note: This post continues the conversation in the Health Affairs Blog roundtable on the unsuccessful health reform effort in California. Below, Lucien Wulsin responds to the ideas expressed in the first round of California posts, which appeared last Wednesday and Thursday. You can also read and comment on response posts appearing today from Rick […]

Editor’s Note: This post continues the conversation in the Health Affairs Blog roundtable on the unsuccessful health reform effort in California. Below, Patricia Lynch responds to the ideas expressed in the first round of California posts, which appeared last Wednesday and Thursday. You can also read and comment on response posts appearing today from Rick Curtis […]

Editor’s Note: This post continues the conversation in the Health Affairs Blog roundtable on the unsuccessful health reform effort in California. Below, Ed Neuschler and Rick Curtis respond to the ideas expressed in the first round of California posts, which appeared last Wednesday and Thursday. You can also read and comment on response posts appearing […]

Editor’s Note: This is the fourth post in a Health Affairs Blog roundtable on the unsuccessful health care reform effort in California. Rick Curtis and Ed Neuschler, Patricia Lynch, and Rick Kronick are also participating in the roundtable. Follow-up comments from Curtis and Neuschler, Lynch, and Wulsin are posted.
Nearly 20 percent of Californians under age sixty-five […]

Editor’s Note: This is the third post in a Health Affairs Blog roundtable on the unsuccessful health care reform effort in California. Rick Curtis and Ed Neuschler, Patricia Lynch, and Lucien Wulsin are also participating in the roundtable. Follow-up comments from Curtis and Neuschler, Lynch, and Wulsin are posted.
A lot of heat, if very little […]

Editor’s Note: This is the second post in a Health Affairs Blog roundtable on the unsuccessful health care reform effort California. Rick Curtis and Ed Neuschler, Lucien Wulsin, and Rick Kronick are also participating in the roundtable. Follow-up comments from Curtis and Neuschler, Wulsin, and Lynch are posted.
Kaiser Permanente views the failure to put the health reform legislation developed by Gov. […]

Editor’s Note: This is the first post in a Health Affairs Blog roundtable on the unsuccessful health care reform effort in California. Patricia Lynch, Lucien Wulsin, and Rick Kronick are also participating in the roundtable. Follow-up comments from Curtis and Neuschler, Lynch, and Wulsin are posted.
Although stymied by economic woes and governance constraints unique to California, the […]

For your Leap Day reading pleasure, we offer here the list of Top 10 most-read Health Affairs Blog Posts of 2007. Next up—Top 10 for January-February 2008. Additional commenting always welcome.

INSURANCE: A Closer Look At HSAs
by Uwe Reinhardt
REFORM: Musings On SiCKO, July 4th, and Visions of America
by Sarah Dine
HEALTH REFORM: Redefining Health Care
by Michael E. […]

Editor’s Note: The following post by Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) comments on the projections of national health spending from 2007 through 2017, published today by Sean Keehan and his colleagues in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Office of the Actuary as a Health Affairs Web Exclusive. 
Although there’s a lot of explosive material in the latest National Health Expenditures forecast, […]

Editor’s Note: The following post by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) comments on the projections of national health spending from 2007 through 2017, published today by Sean Keehan and his colleagues at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Office of the Actuary as a Health Affairs Web Exclusive.
The projection that health care spending will reach […]

In the wake of the failure of the California health care reforms and the continuing focus on Massachusetts’ reforms, everyone in the American health care policy community seemed to be focused on mandates. They have also been the subject of reporting and opinion pieces for the last two days in the New York Times as […]