700 billion reasons to read the Health Wonk Review

With the Senate passing a $700 billion Wall Street bail-out last night, the Healthcare Economist wonders who else needs a bail out.  The best and brightest health bloggers have your answer.  In this edition of the Health Wonk Review, we will examine six groups looking for help:

• Wall Street
• Health Insurers
• Healthcare Reformers
• Doctors
• The Uninsured
• Kids

WALL STREET

• Julie Ferguson of Workers Comp Insider explains how the biggest insurer on the planet suddenly runs out of money.
• Roy Poses of Health Care Renewal: the board of the illustrious New York-Presbyterian teaching hospital included four corporate executives from Morgan Stanley, Lehman, Merrill Lynch and AIG.  None of these four executives had any particular knowledge of health care.

HEALTH INSURERS

• David Hamilton of Health Care Industry finds that the Wall Street meltdown will create huge losses for Aetna ($234m), Humana ($62m) and Wellpoint ($211m).
• David Kibbe of The Health Care Blog wonders if we will need a bailout of the health care system as well.
• Beth Capell looks at HMO insolvency at Health Access WeBlog.

HEALTHCARE REFORMERS

• Anthony Wright of Health Access WeBlog reminds us that the major social programs and leaps–Social Security, Medicare–happened during similarly tumultuous times.
• McCain or Obama? Joe Paduda analyzes the healthcare reform efforts of the two candidates.
• Obama vs. McCain? David Williams of the Health Business Blog evaluates the two candidates views on premium subsidies and tax changes.
• Colorado legislators may require individual/family health insurance to be guarantee-issue.  Will this attempt at “fairness” make health insurance unaffordable? Louise Norris of Colorado Health Insurance Insider weighs in.

DOCTORS [Especially those owning MRI machines]

• What is a sick physician to do: reveal the extent of his condition to his colleagues and have his practice suffer or keep his condition a secret.  Brain Blogger discusses.
• David Harlow of Health Blawg wonders if the Medicare reimbursement cuts for MRI imaging were too deep.

THE UNINSURED

• America has 47 million uninsured…or does it?  Henry Stern of Insure Blog argues the true number of uninsured is only 8 million since since “a quarter of Americans eligible for Medicaid choose not to sign up” and 20% of the uninsured are illegal aliens.
• America has 47 million uninsured…the Healthcare Economist takes a look at four of their lives as he reviews the PBS documentary Critical Condition.

KIDS

• Kara Rogers of Britannica Blog claims that childhood obesity may hinder educational attainment.

INTERESTING POSTS that I couldn’t tie in with the bail out theme

• Caterpillar employees now have a choice: retain the freedom of pharmacy choice and pay a high copay or go to Wal-mart and pay a low (usually $0) copay.  Adam Fein of Drug Channels explains.
• Vince Kuraitis of e-CareManagement Blog:  What’s the Best Way to Get Hospitals Involved in Care Coordination? Pay them to do it.
• Sam Solomon of Canadian Medicine reviews an article in the BMJ that claims that DTC advertising doesn’t really work.
• Annie of Home of the Brave discusses the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
• What are the top 100 health care policy blogs? RN Central lists them for you.