Thanks to Bob Coffield at Health Care Law Blog as well as iHealthBeat we now learn that DHHS Secretary Mike Leavitt has started a blog. It’s personal, thoughtful, seems not to written by staff or handlers, and well. . . interesting. So does this mean all us policy wonks will have a direct line to the top? Probably not. But does it mean that when a new administration comes in, a blog from the Sec will be the norm? Maybe it’ll take hold and President Obama (Would Hillary do this?) will write his own behind-the-scenes blog. Hey he could do that right now!
Seriously, the thing to be done now is to make this effort by Mike work. By that I mean to help make it a valuable exercise for both health activists and for the Secretary: to make it a meaningful conversation about where America’s health care is going. This could be an interesting experiment. Mike is taking chance here. Let’s not blow it.
