Last week, Dan Foley, MassAHU's legal counsel, accompanied by MassAHU board members Jean Russell, Paul Rooney and myself, met with Senator Richard T. Moore, the Senate Co-Chair of the Committee on Health Care Financing, in order to discuss MassAHU's concerns with two areas of the ongoing implementation of the HCR law. The first concern dealth with the participation/contributions policy set forth in the Fair Share Contribution regulations. We raised the concerns that lowered standards of participation and contributions would adversely affect one of the main objectives of health care reform, which is to reduce the number of individuals who do not have health insurance. A second issue, that could adversely impact the livelihoods of our members is what appears to be the direction that the Health Care Connector is taking in its marketing efforts. All signs point to the Connector establishing it own "distribution channel" by marketing to all employers, including existing group policy holders, which MassAHU believes goes beyond the interest of the HCR law. As a result, we may see employers cancelling their group policies and setting up defined contribution type programs for their employees, similarly reducing the financial contributions towards insurance, thus leading to a decreased number of insureds. MassAHU would particularly like to see this seond issue addressed in a "technical corrections" bill in the HCR law that the Healthcare Financing Committee will be considering in the next several weeks. MassAHU will keep you posted on any developments regardin these issues.

For your comments or concerns, please email MassAHU Association Manager Kate Bardsley at kbardsley@massahu.org