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Report
SYMPOSIUM
THE
STATUS OF HEALTH CARE REFORM
APRIL 14, 2010
NEW
YORK, NY
Symposium
Panel
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NEW YORK - Early Wednesday
morning, April 14, 2010, representatives of business,
labor, the insurance industry, community health centers,
hospitals, and government gathered at the Hard Rock cafe
in Times Square for a morning of bagels, public policy,
and rock & roll.
The event, a symposium on the
status of health care reform, was staged by BALCONY, the
Business and Labor Coalition of New York, along with the
MediCare Rights Center, the Small Business Majority, and
the American Cancer Society, to discuss the recently
passed Affordable Health Care for America bill, signed
into law by President Barrack Obama late last
month.
The symposium was attended by
more than 250 individuals representing various sectors
and populations impacted by the new
legislation.
The keynote speaker of the day
was Secretary of the Health and Human Resources
Department Kathleen Sebelius, under whose direction the
new law is to be implemented.
View the
photographs from the Symposium: PhotosView the full program from
the Symposium: Program
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SYMPOSIUM |
The Status of Health Care
Reform
A BALCONY New York Symposium
Introduction:
Bruce Ventimiglia, BALCONY
Co-Chair
Bruce Ventimiglia, chairman
and president of Saratoga Capital Management, LLC, gave
welcoming remarks and a brief overview of the work that
BALCONY does before handing the microphone over to Lou
Gordon, Director of BALCONY, and the co-moderator of the
event.
(click here to watch Bruce Ventimiglia's
presentation)
Lou Gordon,
BALCONY Director
 The
purpose of the panel discussion, Gordon stated, was to
provide perspective on the notoriously large and complex
health care reform bill; to understand how it will
affect union members, small business, seniors, and the
uninsured; to discuss the next steps for New York; and
to debate what federal reform will do to, or for, New
York.
Gordon also noted
that BALCONY has, since 2007, endorsed a universal
affordable health care plan and that the coalition is
thrilled that President Obama's bill has passed and
expressed his opinion that it will go a long way towards
making affordable universal health care a
reality.
Peter Slocum,
VP Advocacy, American Cancer Society
 Gordon then introduced his
co-moderator, Peter Slocum. Slocum expressed his hope
that the forum would help business and labor think about
how to work through implementation of the new law and
introduced the speakers on the
panel.
Kathleen
Sebelius, Secretary, Health and Human
Services
 Secretary Sebelius led off her
speech by praising BALCONY, its members, and New Yorkers
for their work in making the passage of health care
reform possible. She then spoke broadly about the
bill and its provisions, stressing its value both to
businesses (of all sizes) and individuals (of all
ages).
She noted that the passage of
the bill rested upon a foundation laid by two pieces of
legislation that President Obama signed into law earlier
in his term. The first was the Recovery Act, which
mandated the upgrading of health care technology and the
replacement of a paper records system with a
computerized one. The second was legislation that
expanded Childrens Health Insurance Program, known as
CHIP, coverage to 7 million U.S. children, paid for with
a 62-cent increase in the federal cigarette
tax.
Secretary Sebelius stressed that
it is important to get the right information about the
bill out in order to promote honest and reasonable
debate about implementation with stakeholders., "Don't
misunderstand how much misinformation is out
there," Sebelius said, concluding that the
legislation represents a new beginning and a new chance
for America to get its health care delivery system on
the right track.
(click here to view Sec. Sebelius'
presentation)
(click here to view the transcript of
Sec. Sebelius'
presentation)
Panel Participants:
Joe Baker,
President, Medicare Rights Center
 Joe Baker
spoke about the impact the bill will have on seniors and
specifically Medicare patients. The most important
provisions for seniors and Medicare patients, according
to Baker, are the elimination of the so-called "donut
hole" and the full coverage of preventative care now
offered to seniors, often with no out-of-pocket
costs.
(click here to watch Joe Baker's
presentation)
Ben Geyerhahn,
NY Regional Director, Small Business
Majority
 Ben Geyerhahn spoke about the impact the
bill will have on small business. Geyerhahn
stressed that, in his opinion, the new law is small
business friendly and that the provisions contained
within it are designed to penalize larger companies who
can afford health care but do not offer it, while
helping small businesses to manage the new cost.
The most important piece of the bill,
Geyerhahn contended, is the relative simplicity that an
exchange system will bring to the table. This will,
allow business owners to do their own job and
concentrate on their business instead of wasting time
and energy trying to navigate through an extraordinarily
complex maze of insurance plans.
(click here to watch Ben Geyerhahn's
presentation)
John Durso,
President, Long Island Federation of Labor
President,
RWDSU Local 338
 John Durso,
President of the Long Island Federation of Labor as well
as of RWDSU Local 338, talked about the bill's impact on
labor unions and their members. While Durso
praised the bill as a watershed piece of legislation,
and one that unions have been fighting for a long time,
he also expressed caution: "We just don't know what this
thing will look like yet."
Durso asserted
that his union spends approximately $2 million a year on
uncompensated care and that this bill will go a long way
in making sure that money goes back to the
members. He also suggested that the law will
ultimately allow more people to retire early, freeing up
jobs and bolstering the economy.
(click here to watch John Durso's
presentation)
Cindy
Gillespie, Managing Director, McKenna Long &
Aldridge
 Cindi Gillespiespoke to the
audience about what exchanges are, what they do, and the
options that New York will have in setting up an
exchange system. Gillespie used two examples to
illustrate some potential pitfalls in setting up an
exchange.
First, she pointed to the
exchange system in Massachusetts, where she worked,
saying that it is very successful in providing insurance
to individuals but has so far failed to be as successful
in providing insurance to businesses. She
contrasted that model with the only other exchange
system in the U.S., in Utah, where business has faired
better than individuals. Gillespie suggested that the
failures in both systems could be remedied by combining
business and individual
exchanges.
According to the bill, New
York will have to set up its own exchange by 2013 or HHS
will step in. The real challenge now that the law
is passed, according to Gillespie, is that every state
must take the law and craft a system that fits the
specific needs of the state.
(click here to watch Cindy Gillespie's
presentation)
Troy Oechsner,
Deputy Superintendent for Health,
NY State Department
of Insurance
 Troy Oechsner
(the only panelist who claimed to have actually read the
entire 2,500 page bill), spoke to the audience about how
his department is working with stakeholders to begin to
make the tough decisions regarding implementation of the
health care reform law.
Oechsner praised
the bill for eliminating pre-existing condition barriers
as well as requiring an open enrollment community rated
system, a system Oechsner boasted New York already
had. Oechsner was unsure as to whether the New York
State Law that provides insurance coverage to
individuals age 19-29, known as the Young Invincibles
law, would be superceded by the new federal provision
contained in the Health Care Reform law that provides
coverage to individuals 19-26. Oechsner concluded
by saying that going forward with implementation will
require input from all sectors of society and the
economy and pledged that his office will work hard to
include as many voices as possible as the state begins
this process.
(click here to watch Troy Oechsner's
presentation)
LaRay Brown,
Senior VP, NYC Health and Hospitals
Corporation
 LaRay Brown,
NYC Health and Hospitals Corp., the largest municipal
hospital system in the nation, celebrated the bill for
providing coverage to so many people previously
uninsured.
HHC currently serves
1.3 million people a year. Of those, 75% are truly
medically indigent. In 2009 HHC saw 432,000
uninsured patients and Brown estimated that the current
bill will only extend coverage to about 130,000 of
them. The major reason, according to Brown, is that
the bill does not include any provisions for providing
care to undocumented immigrants; something she believes
still needs to be addressed, by the state if not the
federal government.
Brown expressed
excitement at the $10 million the bill allocates for a
Medicare/Medicaid center for innovation, designed to
reevaluate how hospitals care for patients in an effort
to align the finance and service sides of hospital's
work - a goal she sees as paramount in the struggle for
reform of the health care delivery system.
(click here to watch LaRay Brown's
presentation)
Joseph
Berardo, CEO and President, MagnaCare
 Joe Berardo is CEO and President of
MagnaCare, a company that offers health care solutions
and provider networks to self-insured organizations,
commercial insurers, and municipalities amongst
others. Berardo spoke about how the law would
affect insurance carriers.
Berardo offered the only
dissenting voice of the morning, calling President
Obama's bill "bad" because it fails to adequately
address cost control issues. At the same time he
characterized the bill a social victory insofar as it
will cover people previously uninsured.
Berardo expressed the opinion that,
looking at how the bill is financed, he expects health
care costs to go up not down as a result of the new
law. He also expressed his fear that adding 15
million individuals to the Medicaid rolls will overflow
the system and that there is very little in the bill to
address the near-term costs of this
expansion. Berardo did conclude by expressing his
support for a regulated system and his desire to work
with hospitals to incentivize more preventative care.
(click here to watch Joseph Berardo's
presentation)
Elisabeth
Benjamin, VP of Health Initiatives,
Community
Service Society of New
York
 Elisabeth
Benjamin talked about how the bill will affect the
uninsured and provide significant financial help to the
state. In New York, Benjamin noted, there are 2.7
million uninsured individuals. Under the new law,
she explained, 1 million of those individuals will go
into Medicaid, for which NYS will receive $30 billion in
federal funding. Another million will go onto the
exchanges, for which NYS will receive $25 billion over
the next 10 years.
(click here to watch Elisabeth Benjamin's
presentation)
Catherine
Abate, President, Community Healthcare
Network
 Catherine Abate discussed the
impact on community health care centers. Abate
asserted that community health centers are the lynchpin
of health care in the U.S., and that a vast majority of
the 32 million individuals who will now have insurance
thanks to the new law will rely on these centers for
primary care. Part of the reason for this is that
40% of the individual's who use these centers are
currently uninsured. Another reason is that these
centers put a large emphasis on providing preventative
care and screenings, saving both patients and hospitals
time and money.
Abate concluded by noting
that she is not altogether happy with the way
reproductive rights issues were dealt with in the bill,
explaining that due to the Nelson Amendment abortions
will not be available through the insurance exchange and
suggested that women will be frustrated that they have
to write two checks to obtain this service.
(click here to watch Catherine Abate's
presentation)
(click here to watch the Panel Question
& Answer session)
BALCONY offers a special thanks to our
sponsoring members: New York State United Teachers,
American Cancer Society, MagnaCare, Medicare Rights
Center, the Small Business Majority, Community
Healthcare Network, AARP, New York State Nurses
Association, WCBS News Radio 880, Metro New York Health
Care, Universal American, Milberg LLP, NYS Health
Foundation, McKenna Long & Aldridge, Saratoga
Capital Management, and the Greater New York Chamber of
Commerce.
The event was held
at: Hard Rock Cafe |
43rd
Street and Broadway | New York
City
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Bruce Ventimiglia,
Co-Chair
Alan
Lubin, Co-Chair
__________
Symposium
Participating Organizations
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Medicare Rights Center
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American Cancer
Society
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NYSUT
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Small Business Majority
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NYS Health Foundation
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McKenna Long and Aldridge
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Community Health Network
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NYS Nurses Assoc
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Saratoga Capital
Management
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AARP
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WCBS NewsRadio880
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Universal American
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Milberg
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Metro NY Healthcare
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Magnacare
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WHY Hunger
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| BALCONY NYC ACCESS FOR SMALL BUSINESS
FORUM: MAY 6,
2010
Greater New York
Chamber of Commerce
at Madison Square Garden Business
Fair.
Small Business Fair Opens at
8:00 a.m.
BALCONY hosts Health Care
Panel.
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| A Time for Change
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An International
Health Care ConferenceBALCONY is a sponsor of
the
international health care conference
"A Time for
Change:
Restructuring America's Health
Care
Delivery System" May 11-12 in New York City
Designed
for health care practitioners, management and labor
leaders, researchers and policymakers, the event is
being organized by
Cornell University's ILR School.
Click here for more
information: Cornell
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BALCONY
THANKS
The Hard Rock Café for renting
their space for this special event...
Content Critical for donation
of the forum program...
WHY Hunger, a supporting
organization.
And all those who attended
BALCONY's April 14th Symposium on The Status of Health
Care Reform.
BALCONY was pleased to bring
together experts from business and labor to find common
ground on the newly enacted Affordable Health Care for
America law.
BALCONY Thanks Raffle
Item Donors: Joseph Stamm, Medreview ; David Pollak,
McKenna Long & Aldridge; Rebecca Gardner,
WCBSNewsradio 880; Alan Handell, Content
Critical.
And, BALCONY thanks its staff
and others for their hard work on this
event:
Nicholas Kapustinsky, Research
and Communications
Diane Masters, Development
Administrator
Kevin R. Weaver, Web
Developer
Jeanne Suggs, Suggs Media
Productions
Michael Wehrhahn,
GSPNetwork
Scott Levenson, The Advance
Group
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BALCONY MEMBERS DIRECTORY
(Spring 2010)
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BALCONY, the
Business and Labor Coalition of New York, represents
more than 1,000 New York businesses, labor unions,
and trade associations. BALCONY seeks common
ground in the public policy debate in New York to spur
economic development through the adoption of
business/union friendly, socially responsible common
sense laws that maintain and improve the quality of life
for working New Yorkers.
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