While mainstream news coverage is still a primary source of information for the latest in policy debates and the health care marketplace, online blogs have become a significant part of the media landscape, often presenting new perspectives on policy issues and drawing attention to under-reported topics. To provide complete coverage of health policy issues, the Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report offers readers a window into the world of blogs in a roundup of health policy-related blog posts. "Blog Watch," published on Tuesdays and Fridays, tracks a wide range of blogs, providing a brief description and relevant links for highlighted posts.

Louise of Colorado Health Insurance Insider 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.

Chris Fleming of the Health Affairs Blog provides an overview of the new issue of Health Affairs, which features different perspectives on medical technology, including lack of price transparency in medical device pricing.

Michael Miller of the Health Policy and Communications Blog critiques some new educational YouTube videos for consumers by insurance company Humana on health care costs and health insurance.

Health Populi's Jane Sarasohn-Kahn looks at credit rating agency Moody's predictions for the U.S. health care industry in the wake of a new Democratic president. Moody's forecasts providers, including hospitals and hospital suppliers, as having generally positive credit ratings, and insurers and pharmaceutical companies as having generally negative ratings.

Henry Stern on Insure Blog looks at a report from insurer WellPoint that includes survey results of WellPoint customers who offered a consumer-driven health plan to employees in 2007.

Nancy Altman and Merton Bernstein on the National Academy of Social Insurance's Policies To Promote Economic Security for Families blog propose providing universal health insurance to all children through the Medicare program.

Julie Barnes on the New America Foundation's New Health Dialogue looks at reports that free care clinics organized by the Remote Area Medical Volunteer Corps and other organizations around the nation have treated thousands of uninsured patients this year.

Several bloggers posted on Sen. Max Baucus' (D-Mont.) new proposal that would expand health insurance to all U.S. residents:

• The American Prospect's Ezra Klein writes that Baucus' proposal signals "that he means to take the lead on heath reform" and that Baucus is "staking out space for Congress, or trying to, against an executive-led process" to pass health reform legislation. Klein notes, however, that these appear to be the "immediate ramifications" of the proposal, which may change, particularly if Sen. Edward Kennedy's (D-Mass.) health improves.
  
  
• Igor Volsky on the Center for American Progress Action Fund's Wonk Room blog looks at Baucus' potential willingness to alter the tax exemption for employer-sponsored health benefits to help fund his proposal and why progressives support his plan, despite opposition to a similar attribute in Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) health reform proposal. Volsky says this is partly because "Baucus pairs employee-tax tweaks with market reforms that would increase access to group coverage."
  
  
• Devon Herrick on John Goodman's Health Policy Blog says the proposal "suffers from several expensive and fatal flaws."
  
  
• Anthony Wright of the Health Access Weblog says the Baucus proposal means health reformers "start from a vastly improved place from the Clinton era" when the former Senate Finance Committee Chair Patrick Moynihan (D) was "openly dismissive of the need for health reform."
  
  
• Maggie Mahar of the Century Foundation's Health Beat Blog calls the proposal a "candid" look at the problems facing health reform, but cautions, "Given the number of controversial ideas in this 'work in progress,' I have a hard time imagining Congress reaching a consensus on legislation next year."
  
  
• The Health Care Blog's Sarah Arnquist looks at the politics surrounding the proposal's requirement that all residents obtain insurance coverage. Don McCanne of the Physicians for a National Health Program blog objects to such a requirement and writes, "Financing health care with private health plans no longer makes sense."
  
  
• Bob Laszewski on Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review concludes that the plan is a "recounting of the many broad possibilities we could take on key issues" and "it is clear there is no consensus on many of the key details, what health reform would cost, the timetable for implementation, or the source for paying for it."
  
  
• Marilyn Werber Serafini of the National Journal's Health Care Expert Blog asks, "Can this plan work, and is he close enough to President-elect Obama's proposal that they can work together? Are there hot spots for stakeholders and Republicans?" Responses follow from Henry Aaron, Karen Davis, Ed Howard, Kennedy, Jeffrey Levi, Len Nichols, Nancy Nielsen and Rich Umbdenstock.
  
  
• Paul Krugman on his New York Times Conscience of a Liberal blog writes that "one of the key questions" about the new Democratic majority was whether the new Congress would "play it safe" on health care. He observes that Baucus' proposal "looks like an attempt at full universality" and that "there's now a reasonable chance that universal health care will be enacted next year!"