"... Not negotiating behind closed doors, but bringing all parties together, and broadcasting those negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are." (President Obama 1/31/08)

With the passage of the Senate version of health care reform on December 24th, reconciliation between it and the House bill begins.  Despite a request from CNN to televise any hearing on this process, the reconciliation will take place behind closed doors without bipartisan effort.  There are no plans to appoint a formal House-Senate conference committee, the method Congress most often uses to reconcile differing bills.

Closed discussions by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, President Obama and his staff will be the primary force crafting a compromise between the House and Senate versions that they feel will garner the 60 votes necessary to pass a final bill in the Senate while retaining the votes necessary for passage in the Democratic controlled House.

It is the intention of the Democratic Leadership to have the bill on the desk of President Obama so he can sign it into law sometime approaching his State of the Union address in February.

Bottom line - There are literally hundreds of differences between the two versions, a House measure that ran to 1,990 pages and a Senate version of 2,074, not counting 383 pages of last-minute changes.  Failure to pass a final bill would be a political disaster for the Democratic Party and the Obama Presidency.  Through coercion, promises, special considerations and calls for party loyalty the Democratic Leadership will do whatever it takes to pass a bill in some form. Despite Republican efforts to block it, barring some unforeseen event, a new health care bill will become the law of the land.

What To Expect In the new Health Care Bill

Due to the need to retain the votes of all 58 Democratic Senators and the Two Independents that caucus with them, the final bill should closely resemble the version passed in the Senate.  House Democrats will have to fall on the sword and give up their principles whatever their feelings on the merit of this legislation and accept the Democratic Leaderships "Any bill is better than no bill" 

United Health Care has provided an outline of what we might expect the final bill will contain and how health care coverage will look as it is implemented over the next several years.  You can read this article by Clicking Here.
 

Speculation - Where Do We Fit as Agents?

Agents will continue to have a place in the health care market.  The question - will the compensation they receive for their efforts be sufficient to justify the liability, the time and effort required to sell and service their clients?  The successful agent will realize that the rules of the game have changed and know that how they market and how they service will need to change as well.

With lower commissions (that is inevitable), hit or miss face to face spreadsheet selling will be too time consuming and too expensive to survive in the world of Obama care. Relationships will always be important, but service and the ability to answer a clients needs will be keys to survival for agents.  For the successful agent, Brokerage General Agents such as AMG will serve as a back office providing much of the customer service they now do themselves.

Web based service and sales will become a mainstay of the independent agent.  Many of you now have web sites, but the majority of those sites are under utilized or not used at all as a sales tool. Technologically astute Brokerage General Agencies such as AMG can provide website and mass marketing tools such as EZ Life Sales, The CLQ quote engine, and Website design to transition your practice so it continues to grow and be profitable.

 An "Everything In One Place" BGA such as AMG will also assist you in developing alternative markets beyond health insurance by offering a broad portfolio of quality products from multiple carriers.  Individual Life, LTC, Worksite products, Disability Income, Annuities, Dental, Vision and Occupational Accident are all available at AMG; providing an opportunity to grow your practice through both new sales and cross selling to existing clients.

Cobra Benefits Extended

In December, President Obama signed the Department of Defense Appropriations bill that included provisions extending COBRA benefits and delays a scheduled 21.2% cut in Medicare physicians payments ( The Doc Fix) for two months until February 28, 2010.  As enacted in 2009, as part of the American Recovery Reinvestment Act of 2009, individuals losing their jobs between September 1, 2008 and December 31, 2009 were eligible for a 65% premium subsidy for up to nine months. The COBRA provision in the Defense Appropriations bill extends the eligibility period for premium subsidies by two months to February 28, 2010 for individuals involuntarily terminated and lengthens the duration of the subsidy from 9 to 15 months.