As you can see we had great meetings on our first lobbying day. Today started with a marathon general session that went from 8 a.m. until 11:30 a.m. We were addressed by a couple of legislators, a Whitehouse budget representative, a healthcare CEO and finally a panel presentation consisting of two gentlemen from the provider side.
At this point, I’ve been eating, sleeping and breathing healthcare reform since Sunday so I did not take as much of that message from today as I did the little things that were said. Here’s what I got from today;
Our first speaker was Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE). Senator Nelson supports our position, but it was his first comment that struck me a funny. He noted that it used to be when a representative in Washington, after being introduced, would always say, “Thanks a million”. But in today’s Washington, he said, it’s more like, “thanks a trillion”. This was funny, but a little scary. I’m reminded of what one of my teachers said, “Many a true things are said in jest”.
Our second speaker was Keith Fultonol (I may have misspelled his last name) who is the Associate Director of the Office of Management and Budget (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/). Keith went over the President’s budget regarding healthcare (FYI President Obama has put in $634B for healthcare reform). He laid out the President’s agenda for healthcare reform that includes guaranteeing individuals access to Doc’s, increasing the quality of care, decreasing cost and eliminating barriers to continuing coverage between jobs (among other things). While most yawned through his presentation that included slides of massive spreadsheets that you could not read (even on the super large 20’ screens), I enjoyed this presentation the most out of all of them. I like the numbers.
Next up was Don Hamm, President & CEO of Assurant Health. Don is also on the board of AHIP and presented their position on healthcare reform. AHIP’s position is to allow guaranteed access to coverage (with no Pre-x) and would like to see a sliding scale subsidy for those living between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level (FPL). What I found particularly interesting is that Don broke down the uninsured numbers for us. 48MM uninsured works out to be 9MM non-resident Americans, 15MM who are insurable but who choose not to purchase coverage and above 400% of FPL, 22MM living between 0% and 400% of the FPL and 2MM who are uninsurable.
Then came Representative Allyson Schwartz (D-PA) who supports us, but was not versed in the recent COBRA stimulus package. Unfortunately these were exactly the questions that came from the audience and, after a couple of tries, scooted off the stage and thanked us for having her.
Then came the panel of providers. I have to admit here folks, they started with similar support statements and I had had enough (and still had an April renewal to secure) so I scooted too. Sorry, nothing to note here (other than I took care of my renewal).
We did have one legislative meeting with Senator Schumer’s Legislative Assistant, Meghan Taira, but I will blog about all our legislative meetings tomorrow after they are all completed. You’ll have to read about this then.
At this point, I’ve been eating, sleeping and breathing healthcare reform since Sunday so I did not take as much of that message from today as I did the little things that were said. Here’s what I got from today;
Our first speaker was Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE). Senator Nelson supports our position, but it was his first comment that struck me a funny. He noted that it used to be when a representative in Washington, after being introduced, would always say, “Thanks a million”. But in today’s Washington, he said, it’s more like, “thanks a trillion”. This was funny, but a little scary. I’m reminded of what one of my teachers said, “Many a true things are said in jest”.
Our second speaker was Keith Fultonol (I may have misspelled his last name) who is the Associate Director of the Office of Management and Budget (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/). Keith went over the President’s budget regarding healthcare (FYI President Obama has put in $634B for healthcare reform). He laid out the President’s agenda for healthcare reform that includes guaranteeing individuals access to Doc’s, increasing the quality of care, decreasing cost and eliminating barriers to continuing coverage between jobs (among other things). While most yawned through his presentation that included slides of massive spreadsheets that you could not read (even on the super large 20’ screens), I enjoyed this presentation the most out of all of them. I like the numbers.
Next up was Don Hamm, President & CEO of Assurant Health. Don is also on the board of AHIP and presented their position on healthcare reform. AHIP’s position is to allow guaranteed access to coverage (with no Pre-x) and would like to see a sliding scale subsidy for those living between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level (FPL). What I found particularly interesting is that Don broke down the uninsured numbers for us. 48MM uninsured works out to be 9MM non-resident Americans, 15MM who are insurable but who choose not to purchase coverage and above 400% of FPL, 22MM living between 0% and 400% of the FPL and 2MM who are uninsurable.
Then came Representative Allyson Schwartz (D-PA) who supports us, but was not versed in the recent COBRA stimulus package. Unfortunately these were exactly the questions that came from the audience and, after a couple of tries, scooted off the stage and thanked us for having her.
Then came the panel of providers. I have to admit here folks, they started with similar support statements and I had had enough (and still had an April renewal to secure) so I scooted too. Sorry, nothing to note here (other than I took care of my renewal).
We did have one legislative meeting with Senator Schumer’s Legislative Assistant, Meghan Taira, but I will blog about all our legislative meetings tomorrow after they are all completed. You’ll have to read about this then.
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