CapCon 2010 Day 1

CapCon Day 1

Wow. All I can say is wow.

What an amazing first day here at CapCon. What serendipitous timing that we are all here as health care reform is taking leaps. Wow. No time for casual gatherings or for photos and back slaps. I had barely enough time to scarf down a chicken salad sandwich and return one call before launching myself into the next session. The day flew by and I was energized by it.
Today started with the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by the National Anthem and then introductions of the NAHU Board, various committee heads and NAHU staff. Then Janet Trautwein did a very god job of laying out the reasons why we are here and how NAHU is prepared to address the questions raised in the proposed legislation. She did an excellent job of preparing us for what we need to do on “The Hill” over the next couple of days. She also described the path by which the Senate Bill, passed on Christmas Eve, would most like go through the House. I’ll expand more on that in a minute.

Next, we heard from Stuart Rothenberg, Editor and Publisher of the Rothenberg Political Report, who gave us an overview of health care reform and the political election cycle. I must admit, I’m more of a “policy junkie” than a “political junkie” so his political insights were welcomed. Stuart made many references to polling numbers. In an election, polls mean quite a bit. This is an election year and many legislators want reform, but also want to get re-elected too. He gave us two good resources if you want to keep your finger on the “pulse” of the polls- www.realclearpolitics.com & www.pollster.com . The biggest poll he felt mattered was the one that measured the public’s confidence in the leadership of the country. That approval rating currently sits around the mid-30’s. Not very good and is a sure tell-tale sign as to the public’s waning tolerance for “spend and spend some more” government. He referred to it as “Big Government Fatigue”.

The next topic was the importance of political involvement. I had felt that message had already been received, and they were running late, so I snuck out to check e-mails and return a call (I still have a business to run).

After my work, it was a quick sandwich and then off to our regional meeting where, Norm Michaels, our regional VP, headed up a session that gave an update from our region (our region includes most of the northeastern states). Here we introduced ourselves, talked about membership, heard tips on board development and coordinated our legislative appointments.
I know I’m going on too much, but I haven’t even gotten to the most important part of the day yet. I hope you keep reading.

In my first breakout session, the speaker announced that there was breaking news. It had just been announced that the House was calling for a vote on the Christmas Eve-passed Senate bill in just 10 days and that a mandatory meeting of all the House Democrats is scheduled for Wednesday morning. The session was about NAHU’s plan for reform, and I took some notes, but I kept thinking about this House meeting, the Senate bill and how reconciliation tied all this together. I skipped the next session and found our Director of State Affairs, Adam Brackemyre, and asked him to explain it all to me. He was all too happy to help. Here’s what it all means;

Apparently the President is asking the House to vote (and pass) the Senate bill that was passed on Christmas Eve. Then send that bill, along with a list of things the House wants to see changed in the bill (almost akin to a “wish list”) and the Senate will “fix” it through a voting process called “Reconciliation”. To the best of my knowledge, reconciliation is a process by which a simple majority vote will approve legislation and there is shorter time for debate than during the “regular” process. There are two problems here; (1) the House must trust the Senate to implement their “fixes” into the final bill. The Senate could not change anything and pass the bill onto the President for a signature (since now the same bill passed both the House and the Senate) and then it will become a law. This is a huge extension of faith on the part of the House. (2) In the past, the reconciliation process has only been used for items that relate directly to the budget. There are two major, non-budget, issues in the Senate bill- Abortion and Immigration. These are moral issues and it is unclear if the Senate can even use reconciliation if the Senate Parliamentarian cries “foul” on non-budget issues. There are theories that the Vice President can override the Parliamentarian, but we are getting way ahead of ourselves. The message here is that we are entering uncharted waters and we can’t afford any mistakes.

The House vote now takes center stage and finding out what Representative’s support this and who does not is “mission critical”.

Lastly, but certainly not the least was our final speaker of the day, Len Nichols, the Director of Health Policy Program at the New America Foundation. In my opinion, Len was nothing short of amazing. I’ve been to many conferences and have had the pleasure of seeing many speakers, but Len was about the best I’ve ever seen. I am not kidding. Len is an economist and you might be thinking his presentation was similar to CPA lecture, but he put together a presentation that was interesting and inspiring. While pulling together statistics and numbers that gave validity to his statements, he had us captivated. He was not compromising. Some of his statements cut us to the quick, however, the manner in which he delivered them did not allow us the ability to deny them. It was truly something to be experienced. You could have heard a pin drop during his pauses. I recommend you find him on some social outlet and follow him.

Once more, wow what a day. Tomorrow has some big shoes to fill. I am honored to be here on your behalf. Thank you and stay tuned for my tweets.

Pete