Local follies
There is an interesting article on Seattle politics in today's
Shark Blog.
Deborah Senn is running for the post of WA State Attorney General. One of her previous positions has been the WA State Insurance Commissioner and during this time she proved to be less than adequate at her job -- during her watch the state lost it's
national accreditation.
Stefan wrote a
few days ago:
bq. Deborah Senn is the most entertaining of the four candidates. What exactly will she do to lower gas prices? Will there be price controls and rationing? The article doesn't say. Senn's major qualification for the AG job is that she was the state's elected Insurance Commissioner for 8 years. But the article avoids mentioning that her tenure was a disaster, that resulted in:
Accreditation by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners was withdrawn in 1999, while Senn held the office, after a NAIC audit found fault with staffing levels, training, exam procedures, timeliness and management oversight,
Today, Stefan posts an
email from one of his readers:
bq.
This article is quite accurate as to what happened to Washington State's health care -- it was socialized by Lowery and Senn in the 1990s with the result that individual policies (which cover very little) now cost as much as $600 per month.
bq. In addition about 1/3 of the physicians have left the state or retired -- in Seattle Providence Medical Center which was the CHARITY hospital in the area (they NEVER SUED ANYONE FOR ANYTHING) went out of business along with the Sisters of Providence health insurance pool (lost $30 million in six months playing Senn's roulette...) I know because I was a manager at the institution....
bq. The pool of the uninsured in Washington is growing at an alarming rate -- fewer companies can offer health insurance (on top of the state's tax structure) and the types of uninsured are moving up the scale from temporary workers to those with regular jobs -- ONLY GOVERNMENT WORKERS ENJOY NEARLY UNLIMITED ACCESS TO HEALTH INSURANCE FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR FAMILIES (OR SAME-SEX LOVERS) --- taxpayers in King County pay up to $900 per month in health benefits for every county worker --
bq. This will not right itself -- ever....the entire health system in the state was brought down and destroyed by Debbie (and Mike) and Hillary -- the doctors have fled, the vast pool of cash accumulated over the decades by insurance companies is gone, and the basic charity care institutions are gone -- they will never return....
bq. DEBBIE SENN IS THE SINGLE MOST DIRECT CAUSE OF THIS CATASTROPHE...
Stefan concludes his post with this delicious comment:
bq. It's tempting to support Deborah Senn in the Democratic primary, but only because she would be such an easy Democrat for the Republicans to beat.
Heh...
Posted by DaveH at June 26, 2004 11:02 AM