Author Archive
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Campaign Desk
Time Offers Half a Loaf
March 12, 2009 01:29 PMReading Karen Tumulty’s compelling narrative about her brother’s illness and misadventures in the U.S. health care system in this week’s issue of Time reminded me of Fast Food Nation, the deservedly popular book that chronicled the evils of... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
The Takeaway from the Health Care Summit
March 9, 2009 10:09 AMTevi Troy, a visiting senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, writing on The Fox Forum, the news blog of Fox News, tidily summed up the outcome of the President’s Health Care Summit last week. The breakout sessions where... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Baucus Watch, Part VI
March 6, 2009 02:03 PMAs chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Max Baucus holds the keys to health-care reform; any health-care legislation must pass through his committee. So what he says or doesn’t say is important to those following the twists and turns... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Who Will Be at the Table? Part VI
March 6, 2009 12:37 PMDuring the campaign, Barack Obama promised his cheering crowds that, when he rolled up his sleeves to work on health care, he would “have insurance company representatives and drug company representatives at the table. They just won’t be able to... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Explaining COBRA
March 5, 2009 12:21 PMThe ways in which laid-off workers will be helped under the stimulus bill’s COBRA provisions continue to be of great interest to people looking for ways to keep their health coverage. So we were pleased to see CNN... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Wanted: More Skepticism at The New York Times
March 3, 2009 02:50 PMOn Saturday, The New York Times’s new consumer feature, “Patient Money,” which discusses pocketbook issues relating to health care, tackled the au courant subject of COBRA. Although the media have ignored COBRA for years, it’s suddenly... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Adieu, Medicare Advantage?
March 2, 2009 10:35 AMA week or so ago, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) ordered WellCare, the super-aggressive seller of Medicare Advantage plans, to stop selling policies to seniors beginning March 7 until they cleaned up their act and improved their... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Where’s the Plan?
February 27, 2009 12:54 PMYesterday morning, a friend e-mailed asking for my take on the President’s plan for health reform. Perhaps she was looking for my thoughts on who among the uninsured would be covered, whether there would be a public, Medicare-like plan for... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Mandating Health Coverage Makes a Comeback
February 25, 2009 11:57 AMLast night, with his voice full of force, the President boomed: “Health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year.” But when it came to the details, the President wimped out. He simply... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Divining Obama’s Health Care Budget
February 24, 2009 01:31 PMSam Stein, who blogs at the Huffington Post, apparently has a pipeline to the health care gods—in this case, a senior administration official (unnamed, of course) who says the budget will call for tens of billions of dollars... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Update on Medicare Advantage Plans
February 20, 2009 07:00 AMAt the tail end of the presidential campaign, Barack Obama said he wanted to reduce the federal government’s overpayments to insurance companies that provided drug and other benefits for seniors through Medicare Advantage plans—and, particularly, a special kind of Medicare... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
A Laurel to the AP
February 19, 2009 09:45 AMEarlier this week the AP sent out a story that offered some clues to the future of health reform and the future of the improbable strange bedfellows alliance. The story, by Julie Hirschfeld Davis, gave readers a succinct... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
The Stimulus Bill and Universal Coverage
February 17, 2009 02:22 PMJust as the deal was being struck on the stimulus package, the News Hour on PBS aired a segment about people who had lost their jobs and could not afford to continue their health insurance under COBRA, the... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Dart to CNN
February 13, 2009 11:13 AMAnyone listening to CNN Wednesday morning might have been scared to death. The specter of the government coming between doctor and patient raised its head again, as it has over the years when the special interests want to demonize health... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
What the Stimulus Package Holds for Health Care
February 11, 2009 12:17 PMIt’s not often that the media pay much attention to different versions of a bill when they emerge from the House and Senate and head toward a conference committee. But given the intense interest in health care this year, and... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Vetting Daschle’s Replacement
February 9, 2009 01:07 PMCall it citizen journalism or citizen participation, but the Internet has been full of stories about Tom Daschle’s would-be replacement as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Daschle withdrew as President Obama’s choice after revelations surfaced that he didn’t pay... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Excluded Voices
February 9, 2009 07:00 AMThe past year’s health care discussion has been remarkable for the narrow range of ideas and opinions that have floated down to the man on the street. Journalists have sought out the same organizations and sources for their stories, offering... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Baucus Watch, Part V
February 6, 2009 10:44 AMAs chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Max Baucus holds the keys to health-care reform; any health-care legislation must pass through his committee. So what he says or doesn’t say is important to those following the twists and turns... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Who Will Be at the Table? Part V
February 3, 2009 10:20 AMDuring the campaign, Barack Obama promised his cheering crowds that, when he rolled up his sleeves to work on health care, he would “have insurance company representatives and drug company representatives at the table. They just won’t be able to... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Mr. Daschle and His Speaking Fees
February 2, 2009 09:24 AMOnly the naïve would expect a public official to be pure as an angel these days, what with today’s megabuck campaigns and the cash dangled before legislators by special interests which have much to gain (or lose) from governmental decisions.... Continue reading
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Desks
The Audit Business
- Anti-paywall dead-enders Why worry about evidence when you can argue against straw men?
- Audit Notes: pyramid people, Disney and ABC, no USA Today paywall Roddy Boyd digs into a diet-shake pyramid scheme
The Observatory Science
- Dull news from Doha UN climate summit a ho-hum affair for the press
- Highway to the danger zone Following Sandy, HuffPo and NYT dig into the folly of coastal development
Campaign Desk Politics & Policy
- NBC News sets good example for Medicare reporting People perspective leads to clear explanation of impact of proposed changes
- In Pennsylvania, a niche site with wide reach PoliticsPA drives political conversation in Keystone State
Behind the News The Media
Blog
The Kicker last updated: Fri 3:00 PM
- Must-reads of the week
- The media news cycle is bananas
- Pass the #popcorn
- Must-reads of the week
- Tom Rosenstiel leaving Pew
The Future of Media
News Startups Guide last updated: Thu 10:24 AM
- TRVL A free iPad travel magazine
- TheDigitel A small chain of local news sites/ aggregators in South Carolina
