Red River AHU Hosts Legislative Meet and Greet

The Red River Association of Health Underwriters is hosting a Legislative Meet and Greet on Thursday, March 1, 2012, from 5pm to 6:30pm at the Silver Star Steakhouse in Bossier City.

Drozda to Lead LAHP

The Louisiana Association of Health Plans (LAHP), the state trade association for the health benefits industry, today announced that Jeff Drozda will join the association as chief executive officer beginning March 5. Drozda will be responsible for managing all activities of the association. These include advocating on behalf of the health benefits industry, coordinating legislative and regulatory activities, promoting membership, conducting educational events, coordinating workgroups and committees, overseeing communications, and managing the association’s administrative functions.Since 2008, Drozda has served as vice president of state government affairs for UnitedHealthcare. In this role, he has been responsible for legislative, political, and regulatory affairs in the southeastern U.S. covering Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina. He has worked with governors, legislators, insurance commissioners and their staffs on key health care issues. Drozda also served for six years as a state senator of Indiana, where he represented over 135,000 citizens and served on numerous legislative committees, including the Senate Insurance Committee.

The Supreme Court has announced it will allow a full six hours for oral arguments over constitutional challenges to President Obama's health care law, granting the case the longest hearing in recent history.The justices said Tuesday morning they would lengthen the hearing by an additional 30 minutes, after both the administration and parties challenging the law had asked the court to spend not 60 but 90 minutes on a tax law known as the Anti-Injunction Act.The question is whether the act stands in the way of judicial action on the challenge until after the health care law fully goes into effect.With the extra 30 minutes, the court is slated to spend 90 minutes on the Anti-Injunction Act, 120 minutes on the law's individual mandate that all Americans purchase health insurance, 90 minutes on whether just parts of the act can be invalidated while allowing other parts to stand, and an hour on the Medicaid expansion contained in the new law over a three-day period in March.If the justices decide the Anti-Injunction Act applies, they could put off a decision on whether the health care law is constitutional for several years.

Today, providing Mr. Peter Gwynn Sackson with the results from all of the hard work the LAHU Think Tank on Exchanges worked the last year on.

Peter Gwynn Sackson is the Legislative Expert from US Senator Mary Landrieu's office.

With the decision of Governor Jindal to not have a Louisiana Exchange and the scare of the Federal Government creating one for us, Senator Landrieu's office has reach out to us to see if we would like to be at the table to create the Federal Exchange. Of course.... I said yes!

Consumer Groups HAVE it WRONG!

My email:

I am sorry, but I had to address your grassroots campaign to undermine HR 1206
and S 2068. Do you realize that the bill is referring to Agents and Brokers?
The small businesses of the Nation, that do not work for insurance companies,
but indeed work for consumers. That consumers will lose without the help and
direction of the Agents and Brokers. That Agents and Brokers make on average 5%
for all of the services we provide to the consumers of the United States. Our
commissions are included in the premium and merely a pass through and SHOULD NOT
and ARE NOT administrative charges. In Louisiana, we have 10,000 licensed
Agents in Louisiana, where do you propose they work, when you put them out of
business??

The response:

Ronnell,

Thank you for writing to us. We understand your concern and we recognize
the value that you and other brokers bring to consumers.
However, many consumers also need better value in their health insurance.
We strongly believe that the Medical Loss Ratio rule, as currently enacted,
allows insurers to increase value while continuing to pay brokers fair
compensation. If there are cuts to brokers compensation, that is the insurance
company's decision.

Additionally, removing broker compensation from the calculation would not
ensure that health insurance companies maintain broker compensation at a given
level, the proposed legislation would simply remove producer compensation from
the equation and take the heat off of insurers to increase value.
Furthermore, there are numerous insurers that currently meet the 80% MLR
standard.

As you might have noticed in the messaging of our action alert, we see this
as an attempt by insurers to keep business as usual. Ultimately, we have a
responsibility to consumers who tell us regularly that costs are their number
one concern. We have to look at the potential loss of refunds or lower premiums
for consumers and we see these bills as a bad deal for small businesses and
people who buy coverage on their own.

Again, thank you for writing to us.

Regards,
Blake
M. Blake Hutson
Office: (512) 651-2926

mhutson@consumer.org

Ronnell Nolan

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Jefferson Parish Agree's to Pull Resolution!

Thanks to the grassroots efforts of LAHU, we have received an email confirming the resolution will be pulled and the legislation tabled!

Oppose Direct Purchase of Insurance and Rebates to Public Entities

Please Contact the Jefferson
Parish Council - Oppose Direct Purchase of Insurance and Rebates to Public
Entities
Our Sister Assocation, the Big I has asked that
we join them in a grassroots campaign to stop legislation that would allow
purchasing without an Agent!


As per below and
attached, the Jefferson Parish Council recently passed a resolution supporting
legislation to allow all political subdivisions in the state of Louisiana to
purchase insurance directly from insurance companies without an agent, and to
authorize rebates of insurance commissions from insurance agents to public
entities. Please keep in mind that the proposed legislation is not limited
to Jefferson Parish, this legislation would affect every insurance policy with
every public entity in the state of Louisiana.



IIABL strongly
opposes this proposed legislation. If such legislation is introduced in the 2012
Session of the Louisiana Legislature, IIABL will oppose such legislation in the
strongest possible terms.



However, the first
chance we have to beat this legislation is to lobby the Jefferson Parish Council
to withdraw their support and promotion of the bill before it gets filed.



Please contact the
members of the Jefferson Parish Council and express your strong opposition to
Council Resolution 118307, Adopted January 25, 2012.



Please ask the
members of the Jefferson Parish Council to repeal this resolution and not to
support the direct purchase of insurance without an agent, or rebating of
insurance commissions from insurance agents to public entities.



Please remind the
Jefferson Parish Council that insurance agents helped Jefferson Parish pass
compromise legislation last year that allows Jefferson Parish to negotiate
reasonable compensation for insurance agents, but cutting insurance agents out
entirely is not fair.



Contact information
for the members of the Jefferson Parish Council is found below:

Christopher
L. Roberts, Councilman-at-Large, Division A,
ChrisRoberts@JeffParish.net
Deano
Bonano, Assistant (East Bank), DBonano@JeffParish.net
Brett
J. Lawson, Assistant (West Bank), BJLawson@JeffParish.net
East
Bank:
Suite 1016, Yenni / Phone: 736-6615 Fax: 731-4646
West
Bank:
Suite 6200, GGB / Phone: 364-2616 Fax: 364-3499
Elton
M. Lagasse, Councilman-at-Large, Division B,
EltonLagasse@JeffParish.net
Angela
Callais, Assistant (East Bank), ACallais@JeffParish.net
Robin
Daldegan, Assistant (West Bank), RDaldegan@JeffParish.net
East
Bank:
Suite 1018, Yenni / Phone: 736-6016 Fax: 736-6598
West
Bank:
Suite 6200, GGB / Phone: 364-2624 Fax: 364-2657
Ricky
J. Templet, Councilman, District 1,
RickyTemplet@JeffParish.net
Tony
Digerolamo, Assistant, TDigerolamo@JeffParish.net
West
Bank:
Suite 6400, GGB / Phone: 364-2607 Fax: 364-2615
Paul
D. Johnston, Councilman, District 2,
PaulJohnston@JeffParish.net
Bryan
St. Cyr, Assistant, BSTCyr@JeffParish.net
East
Bank:
Suite 1013, Yenni / Phone: 736-6607 Fax: 731-4433
West
Bank:
Suite 6300, GGB / Phone: 364-3446 Fax: 364-3417
Mark
D. Spears, Jr., Councilman, District 3,
MarkSpears@JeffParish.net
Casey
Jumpiere, Assistant, CJumpiere@JeffParish.net
East
Bank:
Suite 1011, Yenni / Phone: 736-6591 Fax: 736-6598
West
Bank:
Suite 6500, GGB / Phone: 364-2603 Fax: 364-3704
E."Ben"
Zahn, III, Councilman, District 4,
BenZahn@JeffParish.net
Jeff
Zapata, Assistant, JZapata@JeffParish.net
East
Bank:
Suite 1015, Yenni / Phone: 736-6622 Fax: 736-6639
Cynthia
Lee-Sheng, Councilwoman, District 5,
CynthiaLeeSheng@JeffParish.net
Rob
Hinyub, Jr., Assistant, RHinyub@JeffParish.net
East
Bank:
Suite 1014, Yenni / Phone: 736-6634 Fax: 736-6632
Eula
Lopez, Parish Council Clerk
West
Bank:
Phone: 364-2626 Fax: 364-2633
East
Bank Council Address
Joseph
S. Yenni Building
1221
Elmwood Park Blvd., 10th Floor
Jefferson,
LA 70123-2337
Receptionist:
736-6600
West
Bank Council Address
General
Government Building
200
Derbigny Street, 6th Floor
Gretna,
LA 70053-5850
Receptionist:
364-2600