Saving FSAs

1
Saving FSAs

• What are the proposals?
• Who are the actors?
• How can we have an effect?

2
Introduction

• Educate
• Bills in Committee
• Components of each bill
• Locate
• Key Representatives
• Motivate
• Callyour Representatives
• Be professional and concise in your opposition
  and insist that your reps affect those on key
  committees

3
Trojan Horse Public PlanSingle Payer
4
Senate Finance Committee

• Financing
• Soda Pop Tax
• Alcohol Tax
• Cap employer provided health care benefits

• Proposals
• Individual mandate
• Health Insurance Exchange
• Pay or Play employer mandate
• Expansion of CMS programs
• Guarantee Renewability
• Employer/Employee Subsidies

5
The Cap

• Jody Dietel
• What is in the Cap?
• News from the Hill
• Separate Cap
• Cap within a cap

6
HELP Committee

• Hot off the press
• New employer mandate
• Pay 60 or face 750 annual fee into the Health
  Benefits Gateway

• Require individuals to have health insurance
• Health Exchange
• Expansion of Medicaid
• Creation of a Public Option
• Insurance credits

7
Healthcare Gateways

• Provide access and information for one stop shop.
• Public Option
• In two of the proposed bills no insurance will be
  deemed as qualified unless offered through an
  exchange.

8
House Tri-Committee Bill

• Individual mandate
• Employer mandate
• Expansion of Public Programs
• Subsidies
• Health Exchange

9
What now?

• Call, write, visit your Congressmen
• Get the names of your legislators, as well as
  those on the Senate Finance, HELP and TRI
  Committees from capitolhill.dpath.com. Call each
  rep.
• Ask for the person handling health care. If they
  tell you the rep isnt on any committees, remind
  them that he/she represents you in all affairs
  and it is important that he/she make your
  opinions known to those committees.
• Be a constructive, friendly professional who is
  giving real world advice.
• What to Say
• You are concerned that the introduction of a
  public plan will not address the financial
  problems of the current system but will rather
  lead to lower quality of care, less choice and
  the elimination of the employer-based
  infrastructure of delivering health benefits that
  has worked for almost 80 years.
• The current estimate of the number of uninsured
  is misleading.
• The percentage of uninsured has remained constant
  for decades, approximately 18.
• Of the number being counted, many are younger
  people who opt out due to their perceived lack of
  need.
• As many as 8 million are illegal immigrants.
• Many others being counted are already eligible
  for Medicaid or other government programs but
  have simply not enrolled.

10
What Now?

• The introduction of a public run health plan has
  not worked in any other country in conjunction
  with private plans, and as written, the public
  plan will drive out private insurance and thereby
  reduce personal choice and quality of care,
  without fundamentally addressing the cost of care
  which is the central issue.
• By capping or eliminating the tax benefits to
  employers of offering health insurance, employers
  will eventually have no choice but to move
  employees onto the public plan. Consumer driven
  health plans such as FSAs, HSAs and HRAs, that
  place the responsibility ones health care on the
  consumer, will go by the wayside, at exactly the
  same time as their positive affects are being
  known.
• As written in the current proposals, the expense
  of offering insurance will ultimately be less
  than that of not offering a private plan. This
  is making employers an offer they cant refuse.
  Employers will begin to abandon private insurance
  (and the quality and choice that it entails).
• As more people come under the public plan, the
  government will then gain more control over what
  is and is not covered, and as result, choice is
  eliminated and rationing may result.

11
Finance Committee

• DEMOCRATS
• MAX BAUCUS, MT
• JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, WV
• KENT CONRAD, ND
• JEFF BINGAMAN, NM
• JOHN F. KERRY, MA
• BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, AR
• RON WYDEN, OR
• CHARLES E. SCHUMER, NY
• DEBBIE STABENOW, MI
• MARIA CANTWELL, WA
• BILL NELSON, FL
• ROBERT MENENDEZ, NJ
• THOMAS CARPER, DE

12
HELP Members

• Edward Kennedy
• Christopher Dodd
• Tom Harkin
• Barbara Milkulski
• Jeff Bingaman
• Patty Murry
• Jack Reed
• Bernard Sanders
• Sherrod Brown
• Robert Casey
• Kay Hagan
• Jeff Merkley

• Michael Enzi
• Judd Gregg
• Lamar Alexander
• Richard Burr
• Johnny Isakson
• John McCain
• Orrin Hatch
• Lisa Murkowski
• Tom Coburn
• Pat Roberts

13
Members in the House Tri-Committee

• Ways and Means
• Charles Rangel (NY) Chairman
• Dave Camp (MI) Ranking Member
• Energy and Commerce
• Henry Waxman (CA) Chairman
• Joe Barton (TX) Ranking Member
• Education and Labor
• George Miller (CA) Chairman
• Howard McKeon (CA) Ranking Member

14
2010 Election

• Blanche Lincoln of ArkansasSenate
  Finance CommitteeChristopher Dodd of
  Connecticut----HELP CommitteeBarbara Mikulski of
  Maryland----Senate Finance Committee
• Ron Wyden of Oregon----Senate Finance
  CommitteePatty Murray of Washington----HELP
  CommitteeChuck Schumer of New York----Senate
  Finance Committee
• Roland Burris of Illinois
• Evan Bayh of IndianaDaniel Inouye of
  HawaiiHarry Reid of NevadaKirsten Gillibrand of
  New YorkByron Dorgan of North DakotaBarbara
  Boxer of CaliforniaMichael Bennet of Colorado
• Patrick Leahy of VermontRuss Feingold of
  WisconsinLisa Murkowski of Alaska----HELP
  Committee/ GOP Congressional John McCain of
  Arizona----HELP CommitteeJohnny Isakson of
  Georgia----HELP CommitteeMike Crapo of
  Idaho----Senate Finance CommitteeChuck
  Grassley of Iowa----Senate Finance Committee Jim
  Bunning of Kentucky----Senate Finance Committee
• Judd Gregg of New Hampshire----HELP Committee
• Richard Burr of North Carolina----HELP Committee
• Tom Coburn of Oklahoma----HELP Committee
• Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania---- (Democrat in a
  highly contested seat)
• Jim DeMint of South CarolinaJohn Thune of South
  DakotaBob Bennett of Utah
• Richard Shelby of AlabamaDavid Vitter of
  Louisiana

15
Resources available to you

• Capitolhill.dpath.com
• http//www.senate.gov/
• http//www.house.gov/
• http//healthreform.kff.org/
• James Cheek
• jcheek_at_dpath.com
• [phone] ex11277