2 hours of e e will began @ 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 hsa fsa...

Lubbock Area Association of Health Underwriters Website: www.laahu.net

Lubbock Area Association of Health Underwriters

PAGE 1 April 2014

Chapter Meeting

Harrigan’s Meeting Room

Chapter Meeting will begin at 11:45 A.M.

2 hours of CE

CE will began @ 9:30 a.m. to 11:30

81900 - HSA-FSA Compliance Quiz

89246 - Health Savings Accounts Compliance Quiz

Monica helps position Optum products in the marketplace. As regional sales director, she oversees

the growth of Optum and UnitedHealthcare medical reimbursement accounts and consumer di-

rected health care in the Central/Midwest region. She develops and maintains relationships with

sales leaders within UnitedHealthcare, brokers, consultants and prospective customers. She also

educates and trains UnitedHealthcare sales teams on the value of Optum products and services.

With over 25 years in the health insurance industry, Monica specializes in relationship building,

consultative sales and service. Before joining Optum in 2007, Monica worked for Humana Inc. in

Chicago, as strategic account executive in national accounts sales.

Monica attended the University of Illinois–Chicago and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from

North Park University in Chicago. She currently resides in the Chicagoland area.



President’ Corner

Our monthly membership meeting was held March 6th at Harrigan’s Restaurant as usual. I talk to the oth-

er chapter president’s at the quarterly state board meetings and we really are blessed to have this fine

facility for our monthly meetings, and all it costs us is the price our lunches! Be sure and thank them

when you get a chance.

We had a little mix-up at this luncheon but it turned out great. We had two speakers and both were really

good. Dee Neill, Program Specialist for the South Plains Association of Governments and the Area Agency

on Aging spoke first. He gave us a great insight into resources available for free to seniors here on the

South Plains. He was the guest and invitee of Reed Hitch, our Vice-President.

Tim Denton, our Treasurer, brought Glen Polk, regional celebrity and actor/singer to the meeting. Glen

told us about getting to fulfill one of his lifelong dreams by playing an old rancher and acting in a movie,

“The Arroyo”, about drug and immigrant smuggling along the Arizona border. Much of the movie was

shot on a ranch down in Garza County near Post. Glen’s tales about his experience was a very entertain-

ing addition to our luncheon. Sounds like quite a film.

On a little unhappier note, Mike Gwin has informed us that his duties with United Healthcare in 2014 will

require a great deal of his time as he continues to grow the West Texas market. As a result he says he

might not be able to make many of the monthly board meetings and he has respectfully resigned the posi-

tion of President-Elect and thus will not be moving up to President in July. Mike did a great job for LAAHU

and led a very successful Symposium. He will continue to help with various projects like the upcoming

2nd Annual LAAHU Golf Tournament on June 9th as much as he can.

Lee Manross with Al Cunningham from PAHU



Dear NAHU Leaders,

I wanted to share with you two pieces of very good news from our government affairs department. First of all, we received confirmation this morning that language repealing PPACA’s deductible cap for small employ-ers is being included in the Medicare provider payment fix patch legislation that has been negotiated by both parties and will be voted on by Congress over the course of the next week or so. A repeal of the $2000/$4000 cap on deductibles for small employer group coverage has been a priority of NAHU’s since the law was enacted. We were, I believe, the first trade association to actively work for its repeal and were in-strumental in getting bipartisan House legislation introduced that is the basis for the repeal language includ-ed in the doc fix bill released this morning. NAHU member and HUPAC board member Alan Schulman testi-fied before the House Small Business Committee calling for the repeal of this provision just a few weeks ago!

Second, and no less important, Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana will introduce two bills tomorrow calling on HHS to adopt key exchange changes that NAHU has been seeking on a regulatory basis for some time. The items covered by her legislation include establishing a toll-free concierge line for broker enroll-ment and policy questions, a listing of all certified agents on healthcare.gov, a fix to the NPN issue that has plagued agents from day one of open enrollment, and a requirement that HHS provide the broker commu-nity of all policy changes relative to QHPS and exchange enrollment within five business days in layperson’s language, including specific information about how agents and brokers can best help their clients take ad-vantage of any policy or regulatory changes in a timely manner. A second bill will make improvements to the direct enrollment process for independent agents, including making improvements that will allow inde-pendent agents better access to web-based entities. Again, NAHU members were instrumental in making sure that Congress is aware of our exchange concerns and we have worked extensively with Senator Land-rieu and her staff during the drafting process of drafting this legislation to ensure that it covers our full con-cerns.

Congratulations on all of your hard work!

Best, Jessica

Jessica Fulginiti Waltman

Senior Vice President, Government Affairs

National Association of Health Underwriters

http://mailview.bulletinhealthcare.com/mailview.aspx?m=2013110701nahu&r=6071278-b2c2&l=000-d2f&t=c



Trip to “The Hill”

On February 24-26, 2014 Bobby Clark, George Keeling, Beth Ashmore and I attended Capitol Conference 2014 in Washington, DC.

Each day of the conference was packed full of meetings and appointments with our federal legislators.

The first day started with NAHU CEO Janet Trautwein interviewing DC Health Link Executive Director, Mila Kofman followed by a

Town Hall meeting which allowed the 550 plus attendees to ask specific questions about NAHU activities and discussions with our

Federal Legislators. The afternoon allowed for several breakout sessions including “Access Opportunities for Agents in Public Ex-

changes, ERISA 101, Private Exchanges-New Options for Employers and Medicaid 101.

Day 2 began with a presentation from Sharon Day, Co-Chair of the Republican National Committee. She shared her optimism re-garding the upcoming national election. Then we were off to the Capitol to meet with Congressman Randy Neugebauer and his legislative assistant. We also met with Congressman Tim Conaway and his staff. Both offices have intern staff from the Lubbock area so they were happy to see someone from “home.” The message we took to our elected officials included: the need for affordability within health care reform, reviewing the essential benefit and other coverage requirements to ensure they allow indi-viduals and employers the opportunity to buy affordable coverage, MLR requirements and the negative impart within the broker community, greater transparency of provider quality and cost data including expanding user-friendly access to current, accurate, unbiased medical cost information. A complete listing of the top policy goals of NAHU can be viewed at www.nahu.org. Most im-portantly, the four of us provided ourselves, and the local association, as a resource to these policymakers regarding any questions that arise in the field of health insurance and agent/brokers.

Day 3 started with a Health Transparency panel discussion. Participants include Dr. Abbie Leibowtz, EVP and Chief Medical Officer,

Health Advocates; Andrew Dryfus, President and CEO, BCBS of Massachusetts and Dr. Lee Hieb, Orthopedic Surgeon. Representa-

tive Renee Ellmers (R-NC), Jennifer Duffy, Senior Editor, The Cook Political Report and Representative Jim Matheson (D-UT) spoke

regarding a transformed marketplace and the continuing role of insurance agents.

Each year this event provides invaluable education and resources that allow for both personal and professional growth. I strongly

encourage attendance next year from anyone who is interested in learning more about our federal policy priorities through NAHU

and the real face of our National policy makers in Washington DC.

Cheryl Clark

TAHU 2nd VP

Proud LAAHU Member

http://www.nahu.org



2013-2014 LAAHU Board

President William Ernest Berry

President-Elect

Vice President Reed Hitch

Immediate Past President Lynn Alexander

Secretary Shawn Laquey

Treasurer & Website/Technology

Tim Denton

Awards Chair Connie Claborn

Presidential Advisor & Newsletter

Della Gunn

Communications Chair John Claborn

Professional Development Chair

Rhonda Thomack

TAHU & HUPAC Chair Dorothy Price

Legislative Chair Bobby Clark

Media Relations Chair John Claborn

Membership Retention/Recruitment Chair

Cheryl Clark

Community Service Chair Jake Montoya

Lubbock Association website: www.LAAHU.net

Texas Association website: www.TAHU.org

National Association website: www.NAHU.org

2 hours of e e will began @ 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 hsa fsa...

Documents