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john kavanagh
durham, NH
Recent Activity
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john commented on the article |Hey, do you have investments in that lucrative niche market of health insurance companies, or are your comments blind to the human suffering that these private insurance companies have created in their voracious pursuit of profits at the expense of adequate health care for those they deem to exclude?
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john commented on the article |
Oh, and I especially liked this when I asked her, "Who owns Chesapeake, MEGA, and the other one?" Her answer, "Blackrock is a big investor."
I shot back a grin at her, thinking to myself, didn't Blackrock get some bailout money? And, what is an investment bank-like firm doing owning health insurance companies? The answer is making juicy profits.
Another topic for a column: What is Blackrock doing owning health insurance companies? In the private insurance market, making a killing, like Wellpoint, etc. would be the short answer.
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john commented on the article |
Here in NH, the Republicans first-line approach in attempting to offer alternative reform measures is the above item and tort reform. Please do a column about effectiveness, or lack therof, of tort reform.
Nothing more than warmed over McCain with these "reforms." The reforms if implemented, ironically, would concentrate regulatory power in a Washington "Health Insurance Czar"--apparently OK for the Judd Gregg crowd (NH's Republican Senator).
His attacks on state mandates as somehow undue political interference in marketing health care policies become muted when referencing the potential of the Washington DC "Health Insurance Czar" regulating insurance companies nationally. Just makes easier access for United Health (as portrayed in Business Week), Cigna, Aetna, and the rest to buy off politiicians influencing the regulators, all campain contributors to Judd, no doubt.
I'm uninsured and likely need a right hip replacement before Medicare eligibility. A health insurance salesperson from something called Chesapeake Health Insurance pitched an individual plan to me the other day. Full of prohibitons: pre-exisiting condition bars for 9 months, physical exam checkup for 12 months, amubulatory care diagnostic imaging and laboratories exclusions that left my head spinning.
She offered me a $303 premium with a $2500 deductible, plus a slew of copays; legal language loopholes for insurance beancounters to apply separate deductibles and deny coverage and abounded: "per incident", "medically necessary," etc.
So I say: SUPPORT THE PUBLIC OPTION NOW!!!!!!
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john signed the petition | -
john commented on the article |Hold your horses on New England. You've got "blood out of a rock (Granite)" New Hampshire. 24% of the state population were uninsured or underinsured in 2007-2008. At the recent Obama trip to Portsmouth, I thought I'd see a sign by one of these die-hard opposed taxation people with: "Expand the 2nd amendement to a health care option: everyone gets issued a .22 caliber, and as soon as they become a burden on the taxpayer, they pull the trigger."
For some of the bunch yelling bloody murder about socialized medicine and the taxpayer burden (see the news report on the Manchester, NH dude with the Glock 9mm strapped to his thigh), I'd daresay the above would be a preferred solution, very final at that.
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john commented on the article |I'm uninsured, not eligible for Medicaid, not a so-called "invencible, voluntary" uninsured. I must manage chronic pain due to a 20+ yar old construction injury.
The public option, expanded Medicaid with lifting of bans on childless adults and reaching up into the FPLx100 is the way to go. Private insurance companies stranglehold on the insurance market must end. Demand they become non-profits or be done with them by-way of single payer!!!
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john commented on the article |
Tim,
Thanks,
"Who Are The Uninsured" debate is relevant, since we saw the Washington Times editorial a month ago (June 27?) wholly distort the numbers on the uninsured (medicaid eligible, "voluntary", and illegals, and presto, they magically disappear). Sadly, this shoddy analysis has infiltrated the Congressional debate (not suprising?). Senator Judd Gregg (from my state of NH) goes on Fox News July 19 and mangles the data even more, but mostly (apparently, since he dosesn't give a source) relying on the NIHCM analysis.
More timely: at yesterday's Obama Health Forum in Portsmouth, NH, I stood at the line-waiting-to-enter with a sign delcaring my uninsured status (due to a two-decade-ago on-the-construction-job hip injury), calling on someone in-line with an entry ticket to: "Ask Obama why Republicans misrepresent the numbers on the uninsured?" Most moving through the line nodded in supportive acknowledgement of the question, however, one man yelled back to me: "Throw-out those 27 million illegals, and we'll solve the uninsred problem."
So, bewteen Wellpoint-financed studies (NIHCM) asserting 12 million Medicaid eligible; those advocating HSA's with high-deductibles (like Gregg, for the so-called "invencible" (mostly young) "voluntary" uninsured (15 million); and the xenophobic anti-immigrant scapegoaters for the rest (see Washington Times Editorial) the data on the uninsured sometimes gets perhaps unncessarily murky, in spite of really good studies by Families USA, etc.
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john commented on the article |
Mr. Foley:
A humble suggestion for a column: The Wellpoint Foundation finances the National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM), that produced a report in April, 2008 that there are 12 million uninsured who are Medicaid eligible. But if you check their methodology, they assess eligible without considering asset limitations or enrollment caps, thus, I would argue, invalidating their study.
Also, on the other side of the coin, NIHCM found only 7 or so million uninsured who earn over 400% of FPL; quite different from what the U.S. Census survey for 2007 found.
Any analysis?
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john signed the petition |
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