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Kevin Knauss

Posts by Kevin Knauss not related to health insurance or other categories, usually editorials, travel essays, food, pictures and maps.

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Converting Backyard Acorns Into A Thanksgiving Side Dish

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With just four Live Oaks (Quercus agrifolia nee) in my backyard, I will usually rake up 2 to 3 wheelbarrow loads of acorns every fall. Until I started reading about Maidu Native Americans that lived in the Granite Bay area of California, I hadn’t considered acorns as a food source. After I had documented numerous Native American acorn grinding-hole sites around Folsom Lake, I figured that I should try and prepare some acorn mush that was a staple of the Native American diet prior to the gold rush of the 1850s.

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The Great Health Savings Account Scam

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Under the new GOP presidency and congress Obamacare looks to be repealed and the replacement to emphasize Health Savings Accounts. The economic rationale for Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) is that when consumers pay for their health care out of the accounts, they will drive down the cost of health care by favoring the least cost procedures. Unfortunately, HSAs without price transparency for the consumer does nothing to bring lower prices or efficiency to the market place. HSAs in our current market place are just scams.

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Repealing Obamacare And The Fate Of One Health Insurance Agent

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For the first time in my life I can commiserate with people who are losing their livelihood because of a government action. Just as some workers have been displaced because the government outlawed a product, changed an environmental regulation, or enacted a trade deal that smothered their industry, I too am on the receiving end of government legislation that will decimate my income. If Obamacare is repealed and the subsidies that make health insurance affordable for millions of Americans ceases, I will lose 90% of my clients.

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Agents Need to Provide More Services to Health Insurance Consumers

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With the constant erosion of the commission structures to agents for enrolling consumers into health plans in California, many agents have expressed their desire to stop assisting individuals and families with enrollment into Covered California health insurance. There has been renewed talk of allowing agents to charge a consultation fee to make up for the dwindling commissions they earn from the health plans and insurance companies. However, if agents want to make a decent return for enrolling consumers into health plans they need to provide the service so many of them advertise. We need to move from order-takers to consumer advocates, and we need fair compensation for our services.

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Hiking along the Negro Hill Ditch at Folsom Lake in El Dorado County

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It can be a difficult task to locate the faint outlines of the Negro Hill Ditch which is usually under water at Folsom Lake. But when the lake is low enough it’s possible to find the old grade and structures associated with the historic water canal that ran from east of Salmon Falls down to Negro Hill and Massachusetts Flat. In the autumn of 2016 I was able to complete my goal of walking along most of the Negro Hill Ditch.

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Hiking along the American River from Mormon to Manhattan Bar

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With Folsom Lake water levels low in the autumn of 2016, I decided to hike from Rattlesnake Bar up the North Fork of the American River to see if I could catch glimpses of gold rush era history. The terrain was far more difficult than I imagine. While I know the river canyon has change since the gold rush of 1849, I was surprised at just how arduous the hiking along this stretch of the river must have been for the gold miners.

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My Father Would Have Loved Donald Trump

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My father would have loved Donald Trump running for President of the United States. Even though my fathered died in 2010, I can still hear echoes of his voice as Donald Trump fulminates with anger against women, minorities, and different religions. It took me many years to comprehend the well of anger my father possessed against so many people in this world. But just like Donald Trump, my father didn’t hate the people he spoke against, he feared them.

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Anatomy of the InsureMeKevin Logo

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Some of the most uninspiring logos can be found in the insurance industry. When I first got into the insurance field as an independent agent I decided to play it safe and not attempt to create a logo. But as my website has become more popular, and I recently published a book, I found myself considering images that reflect me and what I represent. The result is probably a logo-failure by professional standards, but one I really enjoy looking at. It is a stylized concrete arch bridge over a body of water.

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Granite Bay should become a cycling friendly destination

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For years, the rolling pastoral roads through Granite Bay have been a destination for road cyclists. It is not uncommon to see 5 to 10 bikes riding the narrow country roads through Granite Bay. But as cycling grows in popularity, Granite Bay should embrace its identity as a cycling destination by creating wider road shoulders for safer cycling travel.

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Pictures and history of Folsom Lake and American River during the drought

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As the lake level drops, the history is revealed. As Folsom Lake hit record low water levels in 2015, a whole lot of history was revealed. A drought shrunken Folsom Lake of 2015 was the highlight for a guy like me who had been hiking around the reservoir for years looking for historical sites. After numerous hikes around the North and South Forks of the American River at Folsom Lake, I finally organized my photographs and historical research into a book, Hidden History Beneath Folsom Lake – Hiking Across a Dry Lake in Time of Drought.

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