blog - New Hampshire Health Care Action Group

Medicare Advantage Plans: the “junk bonds” of healthcare.

September starts the open enrollment period for seniors choosing a healthcare plan, either traditional Medicare (TM) or any one of a number of commercial “Medicare Advantage” plans (MA). Picking the one plan that is right for you depends upon your overall health status, your financial situation, and your ability to predict your health in the future. For the next 3 or 4 months, you’re going to be flooded with advertisements for various MA plans, pitched by older celebrities like Joe Namath, Jimmy “Dy-no-mite” Walker, and William Shatner. You’ll hear them …

23Nov

Cost of New Hampshire Healthcare Insurance Comparison

Open Letter to Commerce Committee What we pay for hospital care is anyone’s guess. When the bill arrives, charges vary with that year’s employee-sponsored health insurance or whether you were laid off and uninsured. Affordability of an MRI varies by whether your “benefits” include a thousand dollar deductible or if you turned 65 yesterday. The availability of an Operating Room time for a knee replacement is not related to how disabled you might be, but whether you’re on Medicaid. Despite laws promoting transparency, hospital billing is opaque because of how …

23Nov

Stealthy PCP’s

Have you had difficulty finding care with a primary care clinician? If so, you’re not alone – it’s become increasingly difficult to establish with primary care all across the country. This summer in the Upper Valley, after a million dollar rebranding, Dartmouth Health announced it was unable to accept new patients for primary care. 98 million now Americans live in a primary care shortage area, often in rural regions. Access and continuity with high-quality primary care is the bedrock of high-functioning health care systems. Primary care teams assure immunization, screenings …

22Nov

How Advantage Plan Obtains Advantage

To the Editor Conservatives bemoan potential loss of solvency of the Medicare Trust Fund, while developing programs which raid the fund for profit. The nominee for the fund’s Public Trustee, Demetrios Kouzoukas refuses to relinquish his paid Board Membership of a Medicare Advantage insurance plan. Performing his mission to maximize profit for Clover Health while acting to regulate that company is patent conflict of interest. Mr. Kouzoukas states that “to my knowledge the (CMS) trustees report has not discussed topics like “overpayments” to Medicare Advantage plans…” It required a Freedom …

22Nov

New Hampshire Healthcare System is Broken!

Unlike other New England states, New Hampshire has no game plan to access nor manage the explosion of healthcare costs. Over 20 years, the premiums for NH health insurance are consistently higher than the average for the US and other New England states. This puts considerable financial strain on the middle-income families who are already struggling to afford or find rentals and mortgages, and inflates our property taxes that fund health benefits for teachers and state employees. There is no controversy that the major reason for climbing premiums are ballooning …

21Nov

Gun Control? OR Second Amendment?

For those individuals who believe that there should be no limitations to the Second Amendment, I would urge them to read the November 16th article in the Washington Post entitled: “Terror on Repeat: A rare look at the devastation caused by AR-15 shootings” by reporters Silvia Foster-Frau, N. Kirkpatrick, & Arelis R. Hernandez. Normally these crime scene photos never see the light of day but by the Washington Post publishing this article they reveal the unthinkable carnage produced by these weapons of war. Machine guns were outlawed in the 1930’s …

18Sep

We Must Treat Mental Health and Gun Violence Separately

America has both a gun violence problem and a mental health crisis, but the two should be viewed and treated separately. We can all agree that anyone who kills themselves or another human being is “not in their right mind,” but that doesn’t necessarily mean they have a mental health disorder or one that can be detected before they act. The gunmen behind the Buffalo and Uvalde shootings had much in common, but neither had a diagnosed mental health disorder. Besides, even if they did, many states do not have …

18Sep

Americans are being tricked into Medicare Advantage Plans

In a recent op-ed by State Senator Rosenwald, she cites “a recent study from Harvard Medical School shows Medicare Advantage to be a critical tool to improve access to affordable healthcare for our most vulnerable patient populations.”The study did have input from Harvard University, but it focused solely on the demographics of who was signing up for Medicare Advantage plans without comparing the plans themselves. While Harvard was listed first in the name of the report, this was not a Harvard-based study. The principal author of the report was Scott …

04Sep

What is the True Meaning of “Pro-Life”

Republican George W. Bush was a so-called “pro-life” President with a mixed legacy regarding his pro-life positions. On the negative side of the ledger, he is remembered for his deadly war of choice in Iraq, his support of torture, and his economic polices that harmed the poor.

21Aug

Medicare Disadvantage Plan?

Senator Cindy Rosenwald claims in her guest editorial yesterday that “Medicare Advantage plans improve health equity for NH seniors”. Unfortunately, the reality is that Medicare Advantage plans represent a colossal rip-off of the Medicare Trust Fund and an enormous wind-fall for private insurance companies! In addition, Medicare Advantage plans represent an underhanded way to privatize Medicare. The administrative overhead cost of Traditional Medicare is approximately 2% of the total cost of Medicare, which means that 98% of the funds go to direct medical care. In comparison, under Medicare Advantage plans …

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