By Sarah Arnquist

Trudy Lieberman at the CJR : Campaign Desk calls Mike Huckabee’s views on health care "a fresh addition to the national health care discussion." Huckabee talked about the origins of health and the need to focus on societal issues that help keep people healthy and avoid the pitfalls of obesity, smoking, alcoholism, etc. Huckabee said, “the real enemy is not the health care system; it’s poor health.”

Partners in Health improves chronic care in Rwanda with electronic medical records. The model is based on home health monitoring, a lot like Health Buddy, says Steve Brown, but without the institutional barriers and a lot less expensive.

Alex Savic, of Alensa, compares eHealth in the U.S. to the U.K. and concludes that there’s much less innovation in the U.K., which he attributes to the lack of privitization in the EMR and HIT worlds.

The Toronto Star examines how the elderly thrive in Denmark by staying in their homes as long as possible, and having the option of small, comfortable nursing homes.

At Business Week, Michael Mandel writes
that health care employment is one of the few things keeping the
economy going in a piece called "Revenge of the Health Care Economy."

Health care information technology in an early Obama AdministrationBy JOHN HALAMKA

When Obama takes office in January, the economy will be his first
priority, followed by the war in Iraq. Health care will follow as his
next major issue to address. What will he do? I imagine
he’ll take a phased approach to ensuring all Americans have access to
health care. Given the change management needed to accomplish this, it
will take a while. FULL POST

The next president’s health agendaBy MERRILL GOOZNER

A year ago, health care held a solid lead in the polls as the number
one concern of the American people. But by the time the Iowa caucuses
closed, and Barack Obama surged to his unexpected win, it had been
supplanted by the economy … FULL POST

Social solidarity is key to meaningful health reformBy MAGGIE MAHAR

In the recent past, some progressives have warned that liberals made
a mistake when they reached out to minorities, new immigrants, and
gays, "ignoring" the mainstream middle class. But in fact,
"mainstream" America is no longer one recognizable culture. FULL POST

Is much more than we think really possible?By MATTHEW HOLT

On THCB today Maggie Mahar basically tells the health reform crowd to be patient. But two members of the unreconstructed left in other venues don’t agree. In the NY Times Paul Krugman says that deficit spending is OK, and correctly points out that Obama has a real mandate to fix the underlying problems of middle America  — and yes, that would include health care. FULL POST

"The EMR is the Foundation of Everything We Do"
Scott Shreeve interviews Anna-Lisa Silvestre, the VP of Online Services for Kaiser Permanente. TRANSCRIPT

Sermo CEO Daniel PalestrantVIDEO with BNet’s David Hamilton

Sermo has very quickly become the big Kahuna in the physician social
network space. So big in fact that its rivals trumpet how different
they are from it in their models and approach. VIDEO

By THCB Staff

In a letter of congratulations,
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus told Obama he’s already
got health reform on his radar.

THCB regular Michael Millenson doesn’t understand Baucus’ strategy.

Here’s Millenson’s two theories on what this could mean:

Scenario No. 1: The Republicans in Congress, chastened by their election losses, join in a lame-duck effort with Democrats who, in the a spirit of forgiveness and comity, help pass a bipartisan health care reform plan before Christmas. President Bush, fresh from long weeks of prayer and repentance, signs the bill on the morning of January 20 with President-elect Obama looking on. Bush hands him a pen, and then they step out onto the Capitol Rotunda for the swearing-in.Alternative scenario: Baucus holds a press conference and Obama aides wonder silently why a *!# Democratic senator is upstaging a guy from his own party who just won a resounding and historic victory with health care at the very center of it. Republicans, meanwhile, encourage Kennedy to introduce his own plan, and maybe Bernie Sanders wants to try his hand at a real socialist version and, by gosh, it sure is great to see the Democrats being Democrats.