Dear NAHU Legislative Chairs,
Here is the latest installment of our new monthly newsletter specifically for NAHU legislative chairs. As always, if there is any NAHU member you would like added to this list, please let me know. Also, if you don’t feel like you should be getting this newsletter, let me know via email as well. Feel free to forward this message to your legislative committees or other members of your chapter, and unless I specifically mention that a document is confidential or is not for further distribution, please feel free to reprint or distribute any of the information or documents included as part of this newsletter as you see fit.
Update on SCHIP, High-Risk Pool Funding, Mental Health Parity and the TAA Health Care Tax Credit Senate and House leaders continue to meet about the SCHIP reauthorization bill, but we keep hearing from friends on both sides of the aisle that the negotiations aren’t going too well. President Bush has signed another continuing resolution funding the program at current levels through December 14. As the days drag on, it appears more and more likely that Congress will send the President a long-term continuing resolution to fund the program through September 30, 2008. This means that state SCHIP plans would stay at status quo for the coming year and that we will have to continue to fight our SCHIP battles into the coming year, during the 2008 election cycle. Given the current political climate this is something NAHU and many other organizations were hoping to avoid.
Another top issue in the coming weeks is funding for high-risk pools. The Labor-HHS appropriations bill vetoed by President Bush earlier in the month contained $50 million in federal grant funding for current pools and seed-money to help states who don’t have pools to create new ones. With Congress still in recess for the Thanksgiving holiday, work on revising the appropriations bill will occur in December. NAHU continues to lobby members of the appropriations committees in both chambers to make sure that the high-risk pool funding stays in the legislation as it goes through various revisions.
As for the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act, funding for the current Health Care Tax Credit (HCTC) was also extended through December 14. The House Ways and Means Committee passed revised TAA legislation that NAHU feels would severely limit the purchasing options for HCTC recipients. Since the HCTC is the only federal tax credit for the purchase of health insurance in existence, NAHU feels that it is crucial that the credit is structured well, even if it is targeted at a small population. We are working on the Senate Finance Committee staff on their version of the bill, which has not be heard as of yet. NAHU is focusing on revising the purchasing options to allow eligible individuals to purchase coverage available and approved in their state, without requiring a special state election. Also, we would like to see Congress make the TAA guarantee issue requirements mirror HIPAA group-to-individual portability requirements in terms of timeframe AND purchasing option requirements.
The full House still has yet to take up H.R. 1424, the extreme mental health parity measure opposed by NAHU and our coalition partners. This bill would do things like make coverage of “disorders” like caffeine addiction and jet lag on par with not only serious mental health conditions like manic depression, but also other serious health conditions like heart disease. In contrast, the bill passed by the Senate on September 18, S. 558, is bipartisan in nature and represents a reasonable compromise on this issue. NAHU has an active Operation Shout request to members to ask their representatives to support the Senate bill. Along with coalition partners we also have been meeting with Congressional leadership to urge the full House to substitute the Senate-passed legislation to avoid a conference committee on the two vastly different pieces of legislation, but right now it is unclear if any bill will see floor time before the Christmas break. Unlike SCHIP, President Bush has always expressed extreme willingness to sign mental health parity legislation.
Capitol Conference 2008 Capitol Conference 2008 is less than three months away! As legislative chairs, here are some important things that you should know. · The early-bird deadline for registration is December 14. Members can register on-line. Those using NAHU bucks or paying by check can contact meetings@nahu.org to register. Individuals who qualified for an LPRT discount have already received their discount code to use during on-line registration. The hotel room-block and second registration deadline are both on January 4. After January 4, the preferred rate at the Marriott is not guaranteed and any registrations received after that date will be full-price. · The HUPAC event will be an exclusive and interactive bus tour of Washington put on by former CIA operatives on Tuesday, February 5 at 5:00pm. This tour is put on by the Spy Museum, but it is very different from visiting the Spy Museum itself. Unlike the museum, which is open to the general public, the only way you will be able to participate in a city-wide spy tour is through HUPAC. The tours are not offered independently to individuals; tours like ours are only specially arranged for groups. Tickets are being sold at www.hupac.org and are going fast. Early bird ticket prices are $100 for 365 Club Contributors and above and $125 for all others. After December 14, the prices go up to $110 and $135 respectively. Due to limited bus seating, there is a good chance tickets for this event will not be available at the conference, so encourage all of the attendees from your chapter to pre-order their tickets today! · You and your chapter should begin the process of making Congressional appointments with your Senators and representatives in the next few weeks. Please make them between 12:30-4:00pm on Tuesday, February 5 and between 12:30-5:00pm on Wednesday, February 6. Once you have made your appointments, please go to this site and enter in the information so that NAHU can keep track of the visits our members will be conducting while at the conference. If you have any questions, please contact Jennifer Hillert at (703) 276-3809. · NAHU staff will be hosting a one-hour preparatory web-view teleconference for attendees on Thursday, January 17 at 1:00 EST. This teleconference is for all interested Capitol Conference 2008 registrants. Topics to be covered include meeting logistics and etiquette, the conference agenda, lobbying visits on Capitol Hill, working with the new Congressional majority and an overview of NAHU's top legislative issues for 2008. Teleconference participation is strongly encouraged for all first-time attendees, but the program will also contain plenty of interesting information for seasoned Capitol Conference attendees. Registration information will be sent to all attendees closer to the conference date. · Because of new lobbying regulations and a desire to maximize our impact on Capitol Hill, NAHU will no longer be hosting a Congressional reception during Capitol Conference. However, we will be holding debriefings with conference attendees on Wednesday, February 6, from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. These debriefings will be held in meeting space on Capitol Hill and members can come at any time during the scheduled three hours to meet with NAHU staff about their appointments.
State Meetings Last month the state affairs staff attended the quarterly meeting of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and a meeting report is attached. Also attached is a report from State Affairs Director Megan Mamarella about the recent the National Conference of Insurance Legislators conference. A full report of the NCOIL meeting will also appear in the Page 17 column of HIU.
Legislative Tools In addition to the NAIC and NCOIL meeting reports, I have attached a few additional documents that I hope will be of interest and of help to you in the coming month. The first is a detailed analysis of Senator Hillary Clinton’s proposed health plan. Over the next two months NAHU will be producing a series of detailed analyses of presidential candidate health proposals and the first one we completed was of Senator Clinton’s proposal. These analyses will run in HIU Magazine in January, February and March, but I thought you might like this preview of the Clinton plan. Expect me to send you analyses of the Giuliani, Obama and Romney plans in the near future.
The other two will hopefully be monthly features of this email newsletter. Attached is an updated federal issues PowerPoint presentation and also here is a link to the approved minutes of last month’s national legislative council meeting. The one-hour PowerPoint presentation is ideal for CE and can also be reduced in length as needed. It contains up-to-date information about where NAHU is on all federal issues of interest to the association. Please feel free to use this at your chapter meetings!
Grassroots Update In the next few weeks NAHU will be sending out a survey to all members asking them to let us know about any grass-top contacts they have with both members of Congress and state legislators. Please encourage all of your chapter members to participate! The responses to these surveys will be compiled by NAHU in a national database to help us with our lobbying efforts at both the state and national levels. Once they are compiled we will share with you the results that pertain to your chapter. Also, we are in the process of preparing Excel spreadsheets of NAHU members by state that contain each member’s state and Congressional district information. These spreadsheets will be distributed to all state legislative chairs in December and should be of great help to you as you work on building your grassroots networks for the upcoming state legislative sessions.
HUPAC Information NAHU’s transition to our new administrative vendor, Stakeholder, Inc. is just about complete. Look for exciting new changes to the HUPAC web site in early December. Also, remember to remind your chapter about buying advance tickets to the HUPAC spy bus tour at Capitol Conference 2008 and to download new HUPAC contribution forms with our new vendor’s address on them at www.hupac.org.
What to Look For in the Next Issue Detailed analyses of the Giuliani and Obama health plans Updated federal issues PowerPoint More information about the upcoming ALEC and NAIC meetings New information about NAHU’s State Legislative Defense Fund program Updated information about Capitol Conference 2008
Jessica Fulginiti Waltman Vice President, Policy and State Affairs National Association of Health Underwriters 10 Doyle Road Wayne, PA 19087 610-971-2404 Phone/Fax 703-496-0796 Cell |
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