Brad' Report

UAHU.org

Visit to Capitol Hill!

We all congregated at Grand Hyatt Hotel on Tuesday evening, for registration and a reception organized by region. It was there we teamed up with other agents from Utah. Rick Martin and I were representing UAHU. We were joined by 7 other agents, mainly financial planners, who had flown out for the cause. NAHU had already scheduled our appointments for the next day. They also sponsored a breakfast for briefings and provided high quality handouts for our appointments. After the briefing, the Utah delegation met to discuss talking points and other strategies. We decided that all nine of our Utah delegation would meet with all five of our representatives. We changed one appointment to accommodate that strategy and set off for the Hill. Our first meeting was with Rep. Bishop. He was absolutely disgusted with the House bill. Basically he said there is nothing the GOP can do to stop the steamroller in the House. Our best chance is the Senate. His advice was to try to delay things past the August recess. (This point was made clear by everyone. The more people see the proposals the worse they like it. It was like cap and trade. When the house went home after the vote, they got an earful from the locals.) The second meeting was with Rep. Chaffetz’ staff. Same basic message. The Democrats are selling out the country to Euro-socialism. He is not on any committee relevant to health care, so he has no influence on the process. As a rookie GOP, he has no arms to twist. If we can think of a way to help, he would be willing. The third meeting was with Rep. Matheson’s staff. He is part of the Blue Dogs. He (and the other Blue Dogs) are opposed to a government plan. If they show backbone, they can really help. (Some legislators told us that the Blue Dogs have been all bark and no bite, and they expect the same on health care.) But they seem to be doing their best to delay things. When they came out with their “we won’t support a public option unless it has the following features (i.e. it would be a sort of national Blue Cross – nonprofit but fully reserved, level play)” it delayed the House bill three days. They were proud of that. (It doesn’t seem like a lot, but the August recess is just 2 weeks away. Every day delay helps a lot.) When I brought up, that we heard the Blue Dogs don’t have backbone – the staff looked a little insulted. They said it is hard to keep 50+ people in tow, but they believe there is a solid opposition to the public plan by the Blue Dogs. Their goal is to delay the vote until after the recess so the public can weigh in on the plan. The fourth meeting was with Sen. Bennett. We got to go to his private second office in the Capitol – which was kind of like a little fort for him. It had no windows, but some nice artwork on the walls. (Stuff he liked, but his wife wouldn’t allow in their home, he said.) He seemed resigned to the fact that the Bennett/Wyden bill was history. Again he emphasized the importance of trying to delay the bill until after the August recess. The more people see the plan the more they hate it. Sen. Bennett also said he did finally have an “epiphany” on health care. He finally recognizes that the best quality care is often the least expensive. He likes episode of care pricing and the idea of payment reform. We talked a bit about Dr. Brent James’ points. He said the one thing that has saved us so far is the CBO. They are not playing the phony money game the Democrats want. CBO keeps putting trillion dollar price tags on their plans. To keep the bill under a trillion under reconciliation, all they have to do is delay the effective date of the public plan. If it doesn’t start until year 3 (of 10), they just saved 30% of the cost. If they delay it until year five, they save 50%. So they will try to manipulate the numbers until it is PROJECTED TO BE revenue neutral FOR THE FIRST TEN YEARS. After that who cares what it costs. He said that the GOP is solidly behind NO PUBLIC PLAN – with the only possible defection being Sen. Snow of Maine. The final meeting was with Sen. Hatch’s staff. Janet Trautwein joined us for that meeting because Sen. Hatch is a key to our efforts. Sen. Hatch is both mad and insulted. He has been at the center of every health care bill in the last 25+ years. They cannot say they have a bi-partisan bill without his support. He tells them that his door is always open if they want to go bipartisan. But he will never support a public option. He has let them know that if they go ahead with their plans, he will be the loudest voice in opposition. Hatch’s staff is frustrated and mad. They are afraid that the bill is going to move left. If the Senate Finance committee comes up with a decent plan, then it has to be compromised twice. Once with the other Senate bill out of HELP (health, education, labor and pension). And then it is compromised a second time with the House bill. It was very cleaver of the democrats to have two Senate bills. The Senator’s staff made a good point to us. Medicare and Medicaid each have trillion dollar unfunded deficits and out of control spending. Yet the Democratic “solution” is to create another unfunded government plan? They also point out that in the fine print of the bills they have been reading, plans for rationing are already in it. (Frankly we were pretty optimistic until we met with Hatch’s staff. Although it may have been them venting after a long day – it was about 6pm before we left. They are committed to lead the fight for sanity.) At the end of the day our only hope seems to be to pray for no bill before the August recess and hope that the public gives their representatives an earful during the break. (BTW, this is why the leftover Obama campaign money is being used to run television ads in DEMOCRATIC states pushing for a public plan – so that no Democratic Senator will break ranks.) If they pass the bills in July, we are screwed. But to do so, they will have to have another “this is so urgent we have no time read it before voting” strategy. Fool us once shame on you, fool us twice shame on us. It is common knowledge on the hill that the public option is a Trojan horse. The liberal wing of the Democratic Party is openly advising their supporters (and their extreme left advocacy groups) that the public plan will be designed to replace all private coverage… so “shut up” about national health care, it is coming through this soon enough. We literally saw video of a liberal house member – from California - saying so. We brought it up with each of our representatives and each confirmed it … including Matheson’s staff. Finally we need to thank Senator Hatch for changing the “navigator” definition from EXCLUDING agents by name, to requiring navigators to have State licenses and training. This was done based on Janet’s strong recommendation. Hopefully this change sticks through the end – otherwise agents will not be allowed to sell any National “connector�� or “portal��. Since this report was filed, many things have changed – sometimes by the hour. It seems clear that the August recess deadline cannot be met. This allows us a chance to actually read the bill before the vote. Within a few days, we will know if the Blue Dogs are willing to take a stand, or whether we are on the fast track to Euro-socialism. This is a report from one of our California colleagues meeting with one of the more left wing members of the House. This shows what we are up against: “I want to share with you what happened in an office last week and please note I heard the same thing from many of my colleagues. I heard several version of this experience over and over. I was in the office of Laura Richardson (D) Long Beach, CA meeting with her staffers. The meeting started out weird simply because we were handed off three times to someone who was supposed to be more educated on health care financing than the next. In the end, not one of them had any credible knowledge on any Health Care system or financing thereof. Once the meeting started I outlined my major concerns with the Public Plan, The Employer Mandate and the Exchanges. To keep it short I will tell you about the discussion on the Public Plan. I explained that the Public Plan (an insurance product you purchase from the federal government and pay taxes on for those who can't afford the premiums) would be exempt from Premium Taxes (2.3 BILLION a year to California alone), Reserve requirements, Lawsuits and would reimburse willing doctors 110% of Medicare payments & private health insurance plans sold outside of the government do not have these advantages. Therefore the public plan would NOT be playing on a level playing field and would result in a cost shift to the private market until everyone is on the Public Plan. Prices in the public plan would eventually HAVE TO rise without the advantage of competition and must lead to rationing. Let me say that again. Right now, public plans don't pay doctors enough so the private market pays higher premiums to reimburse them enough so they can stay in business. Without the private market paying the doctors, the public plan would have to skyrocket its costs, drastically ration care or both. I asked these staffers if they had any problems with my assertions, they did not. They literally didn't flinch. With that, I asked them point blank. What does the Public Plan do to: 1) decrease costs or 2) insure one more person that is currently uninsured? NO RESPONSE. One of my colleagues tried to sugar coat my question and I interrupted asked again and demanded an answer &.no response. I pushed and said, "So you agree it will destroy the market, solve nothing and can only lead to a full takeover of the system" &.they said "We will just have to see what happens". I LOST IT. I have never "lost it" in a legislator’s office but had no choice but to let them have it as tactfully as possible. As these people openly smirked at me and my colleagues I tried to explain that I have respect for another point of view. I meet with many legislators, activists and even some of you who truly want a Government Run Single Payer system. They are sincere and I applaud their involvement and respectfully disagree. But I have NO RESPECT for this gang of snotty nosed thugs working their political game in Washington by lying to the public by offering a scheme they know will fail in order to get what they really want. Nor do they deserve the respect. What I ran into in Washington this week is beyond dirty. I heard dozens and dozens of people tell me they had the same experience. (Although I don't know if they let them have it like I did.) I listened to the President today spouting the same lines I heard from these people. There is no other way to put it. The President and his supporters in the House are lying to you about their end game. There is not one sincere bone in their body. To be completely fair, when you hear some Republicans say they want them to "slow down", they truly want them to stop all together. They don't want anything but free market reform and less government intervention. (Similar to the treatment the public plan would get to enjoy.) Make no mistake. If they pass anything close to the house version you will: 1) pay more in premium and more in both personal and employer taxes, 2) see rationed care due to primary care doctor shortages. My take away from this experience is this. They can do whatever they want. They have no interest in a rational discussion or care what you think. They think you are stupid and that you don't care what they are doing. They DO NOT believe this is what you want but that you will go willingly. If you care at all, the only thing you can do to slow this down and get real reform that will lower costs and insure more people is to let them know you are watching. Only a risk of affecting their political future will affect these people. (Exception: The White House, I don't think they care about a second term.) The Blue Dog Democrats got it. Not one single Blue Dog in the House will sign on to this bill and they put that pledge in writing to Obama. Not one Republican will sign on. You can see what the Republicans think about the plan here. With all that being said &.the bill can still pass. Pay attention and get involved. This is going to be over sooner than later. Now is no time to sit back with your eyes closed. Do not be lulled into the thought that this won't happen or get sidetracked into the "is healthcare a right" debate. These are distractions, not the issues at hand.