NHCSL members are following the impact of health reform in the states. On March, 23rd, the President signed the Affordable Health Care for America Act – a bill that, after much debate, will have lasting effect on the way in which Americans are able to access health care and either gain, or maintain health insurance coverage. NHCSL is monitoring the implementation of the law, and ramifications for the Latino community. Below are some of the key provisions that took effect immediately, under the legislative package the House passed (the Senate health bill as amended by the reconciliation bill).

1. SMALL BUSINESS TAX CREDITS— Offers tax credits to small businesses to make employee coverage more affordable. Tax credits of up to 35 percent of premiums will be immediately available to firms that choose to offer coverage. Effective beginning calendar year 2010. (Beginning in 2014, the small business tax credits will cover 50 percent of premiums.)

2. BEGINS TO CLOSE THE MEDICARE PART D DONUT HOLE— Provides a $250 rebate to Medicare beneficiaries who hit the donut hole in 2010. Effective for calendar year 2010. (Beginning in 2011, institutes a 50% discount on brand-name drugs in the donut hole)

3. FREE PREVENTIVE CARE UNDER MEDICARE— Eliminates co-payments for preventive services and exempts preventive services from deductibles under the Medicare program. Effective beginning January 1, 2011.

4. HELP FOR EARLY RETIREES— Creates a temporary re-insurance program (until the Exchanges are available) to help offset the costs of expensive health claims for employers that provide health benefits for retirees age 55-64. Effective 90 days after enactment

5. ENDS RESCISSIONS— Bans health plans from dropping people from coverage when they get sick. Effective 6 months after enactment.

6. NO DISCRIMINATION AGAINST CHILDREN WITH PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS— Prohibits health plans from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions. Effective 6 months after enactment. (Beginning in 2014, this prohibition would apply to all persons.)

7. BANS LIFETIME LIMITS ON COVERAGE— Prohibits health plans from placing lifetime caps on coverage. Effective 6 months after enactment.

8. BANS RESTRICTIVE ANNUAL LIMITS ON COVERAGE— Tightly restricts new plans’ use of annual limits to ensure access to needed care. These tight restrictions will be defined by HHS. Effective 6 months after enactment. (Beginning in 2014, the use of any annual limits would be prohibited for all plans.)

9. FREE PREVENTIVE CARE UNDER NEW PRIVATE PLANS— Requires new private plans to cover preventive services with no co-payments and with preventive services being exempt from deductibles. Effective 6 months after enactment. (Beginning in 2018, this requirement applies to all plans.)

10. NEW, INDEPENDENT APPEALS PROCESS— Ensures consumers in new plans have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal decisions by their health insurance plan. Effective 6 months after enactment.

11. ENSURING VALUE FOR PREMIUM PAYMENTS— Requires plans in the individual and small group market to spend 80 percent of premium dollars on medical services, and plans in the large group market to spend 85 percent. Insurers that do not meet these thresholds must provide rebates to policyholders. Effective on January 1, 2011.

12. IMMEDIATE HELP FOR THE UNINSURE UNTIL EXCHANGE IS AVAILBLE (INTERIM HIGH-RISK POOL)— Provides immediate access to insurance for Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition - through a temporary high-risk pool. Effective 90 days after enactment.

13. EXTENDS COVERAGE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE UP TO 26TH BIRTHDAY THROUGH PARENTS’ INSURANCE– Requires health plans to allow young people up to their 26th birthday to remain on their parents’ insurance policy, at the parents’ choice. Effective 6 months after enactment.

14. COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS— Increases funding for Community Health Centers to allow for nearly a doubling of the number of patients seen by the centers over the next 5 years. Effective beginning in fiscal year 2010.

15. INCREASING NUMBER OF PRIMARY CARE DOCTORS— Provides new investment in training programs to increase the number of primary care doctors, nurses, and public health professionals. Effective beginning in fiscal year 2010.

16. PROHIBITING DISCRIMINATION BASED ON SALARY— Prohibits new group health plans from establishing any eligibility rules for health care coverage that have the effect of discriminating in favor of higher wage employees. Effective 6 months after enactment.

17. HEALTH INSURANCE CONSUMER INFORMATION— Provides aid to states in establishing offices of health insurance consumer assistance in order to help individuals with the filing of complaints and appeals. Effective beginning in FY 2010. 18. CREATES NEW, VOLUNTARY, PUBLIC LONG-TERM CARE INSURANCE PROGRAM—Creates a long-term care insurance program to be financed by voluntary payroll deductions to provide benefits to adults who become functionally disabled. Effective on January 1, 2011.

NHCSL members are asked to nominate Hispanic legislators to serve on Federal Industry Trade Advisory Committees (ITACs), through the United States Department of Commerce. ITACS play a critical role as industry’s voices in developing U.S. trade policy. Through the ITACs, business leaders have an opportunity to work side-by-side with U.S. Government officials and trade negotiators in advising the Secretary of Commerce and the United States Trade Representative (USTR) on industry specific issues related to, among others, market access, customs matters, foreign investment and intellectual property protection.

Commerce and the USTR jointly administer 13 industry specific and 3 functional ITACs plus a Committee of Chairs, and consider these ITACs, and the advisors who serve on them, to be a vital part of the U.S. trade policy-making process. As an ITAC advisor, you would have direct access to policymakers and negotiators to offer industry positions on U.S. trade policy and negotiating objectives and you would serve as a critical link between the private sector and government.

ITACs typically meet an average of four to five times a year in Washington, D.C. and sometimes there are meetings outside the beltway. Some ITACs may meet more often, depending upon the work of the committee and the nature of the agreements being negotiated, and members pay their own travel expenses to attend meetings. Please note that we are currently in the process of looking at ways to leverage our technological capabilities so that people can potentially join meetings via teleconference or video conference.

Please contact NHCSL for more information on the nomination process and materials.

The nation is standing in wait for a solution to the worst environmental disaster in US history. The President and 111th Congress continues with work on legislative priorities until the August recess. Those priorities include financial institutions and banking reform, the upcoming reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and transportation. Congress has also begun taking up an update of the telecommunications laws in the wake of the Comcast V. FCC decision. And advocates for comprehensive immigration reform are continuing the push for Congress to move forward meaningfully in the wake of the Arizona legislature’s passage of SB 1070.

In this issue:

  • Gulf oil spill – what it means for our energy future
  • Health Reform
  • Economic recovery and the States
  • Financial reform
  • Call for nominations to Industry trade advisory councils
  • Broadband and FCC action
  • Mayors Call for Comprehensive Immigration Reform

The spill in the gulf of Mexico has caused painful damage to America’s fisheries and wildlife, and the overall way of life of the gulf and its surrounding communities. For almost 50 days, oil has spewed into the gulf of Mexico, and is now threatening the Florida coast and the Atlantic beaches.

President Obama has extended a ban on drilling in the gulf. We should expect more directed attention in the coming months on the President’s clean energy objectives, which include expansion of nuclear and renewables as an eventual replacement for oil. The President, in his first address from the oval office, on June 15th, called for a new approach to America’s energy future, moving us toward clean and green energy. Nuclear energy is an important component of the President’s energy plan.

As part of a broad effort to expand the use of nuclear power in the United States and reduce carbon pollution, U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced on May 20th, the Department of energy’s first conditional commitment for a front-end nuclear facility. The $2 billion loan guarantee will support AREVA’s Eagle Rock Enrichment Facility near Idaho Falls, Idaho, which will supply uranium enrichment services for the U.S. nuclear power industry.

“Increasing uranium enrichment in the United States is critical to the nation’s energy and national security,” said Secretary Chu in a recent statement. “Existing reactors will need additional sources of enriched uranium soon. New nuclear plants that could start to come on line as early as 2016 will also need a steady, reliable source of uranium enrichment services. French energy company, AREVA, is one company helping to meet that demand. The company is building a facility in Idaho currently.

The Idaho Falls [at Eagle Rock] facility will use advanced centrifuge technology instead of the more energy-intensive gaseous diffusion process. Although Eagle Rock will be only the second plant to use this technology in the US, it has been employed in Europe for about 30 years to enrich uranium for the commercial power market. The project’s technology uses 95 percent less electricity than the gaseous diffusion technology it replaces, reducing both energy use and environmental effects.

Areva estimates construction of the Eagle Rock facility will create 1,000 jobs. The total project is expected to cost approximately $3.3 billion.

Currently, the United States obtains half of its enriched uranium from Russia under the Megatons-to-Megawatts program, in which nuclear materials that were once pointed at the United States are converted to civilian nuclear fuel to power America’s economy. The program expires in 2013, after which alternate sources of enrichment services will be required to support the continued and expanded use of nuclear power in the United States

The Senate is coming to a vote on financial reform legislation with wide implications for communities. One of the most important aspects of the bill is the creation of the consumer financial protection agency, which, as proposed, would have wide authority to protect consumers of financial institutions and other entities. Today, payday lenders, check-cashing outfits and rent-to-own stores operate, for all practical purposes, free from federal regulation — and President Obama wants to change that with a consumer agency that spans the world of finance from high to low.

According to Politico, a Washington-based new outlet, the business community and some influential Republicans are fighting back. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has launched an ad campaign focused on limiting the reach of any new consumer regulatory agency, saying that a far-reaching entity would wreak havoc on a lot of mom and pop businesses that had nothing to do with the financial meltdown in the first place.

The draft legislation being hammered out by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee is widely expected to shield most nonbanks from the enforcement powers of the new consumer protection body.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), now in its second year, continues to provide federal dollars to stimulate jobs, boon state budgets and invest in infrastructure. You can see www.recovery.gov for ongoing insight and to track recovery dollars in the states. Yet many reports are emerging that states are experiencing blockages and red tape in several areas, including those state seeking dollars to implement the weatherization program.

Recent reports find the benefits of ARRA to be slow or yet to be realized among poor and minority communities . States across the country report struggles in their efforts to access stimulus dollars and job creation or savings, particularly among the most vulnerable communities. The funds, including money for infrastructure, budget fill-in grants for education and other green job-producing projects were released with the goal of creating or saving jobs that could help Americans weather one of the nation’s worse economic crises. With over a year of money yet to be implemented through the program, states and the federal government must be even more vigilant in ensuring that all communities are educated and have the tools to access and implement ARRA dollars, and ensure that their states meet their compliance requirements while promoting grant and tax credit programs (like the weatherization program) to stimulate jobs in the most hard-hit communities.

One of ARRA’s challenges is that the stimulus grant structure has challenged states to quickly train agencies to access the dollars, implement those grants and meet the new compliance requirements. States who miss deadlines, fail to comply and report, or misuse funds can jeopardize the success of the program, miss opportunities to highlight the benefits of the work, and turn the public mood against the law that was passed to help Americans to cope with difficult times. Ultimately, these missteps hurt communities that the funds are intended to help.

There are some resources available to help states. The Department of Energy has developed a National Weatherization Training and Technical Assistance plan while ARRA is being implemented. The plan is intended to increase the effectiveness of ARRA's weatherization investments and allow for better leveraging of weatherization expertise across the country. Click here to read the plan.

1 ARRA and the Economic Crisis: One Year Later. Kirwan Institue. Feb. 2010. www.gripelements.com
2 Advocates struggle to measure stimulus relief for minority business. Washington Post. Jan. 2010. www.washingtonpost.com
3 The stimulus plan: A Year Later. TS.com. Mar. 2010. www.thestreet.com
4 ON Stimulus, perception doesn’t match reality. CBS News. Mar 2010. www.cbsnews.com

After the Comcast V. FCC decision, which held that the FCC lacked the power to regulate broadband networks under Title I of the Communications Act of 1996, the FCC has begun proceedings to reclassify broadband under Title II of the law – which would expand the FCC’s power over the internet, by treating internet services under laws originally intended for monopoly telephone carriers.

NHCSL has been a firm advocate for the FCC, Congress and the Administration to focus on adoption – to ensure that all communities adopt broadband in order to close the digital divide. With Latinos lagging so far behind in adopting broadband, NHCSL’s taskforce is advocating strongly that all actors must focus on training and investments in digital literacy and helpful business models, not on drawn out arguments over regulation of content.

NHCSL’s Broadband En Accion Taskforce held its first meeting in Washington, D.C. in March. The recommendations from that meeting will be announced, along with the group’s first Whitepaper in late June.

From the San Antonio Business Journal, 6/16/10:
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples on Wednesday announced the launch of the Texas broadband map. This map is designed to pinpoint the areas of the state that already have high-speed Internet service as well as those areas that are unserved. The goal of the map is to help broadband service providers target these unserved areas for future investment. More than 96 percent of Texas households have access to home broadband service. However, a quarter of a million homes, more than all of the households in Vermont, still don’t have access to service, Staples says.

On Monday, June 13th, the U.S. Conference of Mayors approved two Resolutions urging the federal government to quickly pass comprehensive immigration reform and to voice their opposition to Arizona's harsh immigration enforcement law. In addition to the resolution calling for immediate federal action, the Conference approved language expressing concern that this law may lead to "civil rights violations" and "similar actions in other states".

The Mayors recognize that only a federal solution will succeed in truly overhauling our long broken immigration system. The lack of federal action created a political vacuum that allowed Arizona's new law to become reality. The solution is clear: the federal government must take immediate steps to reform our broken immigration system so that states and municipalities are not taking matters into their own hands with state-based patch-work fixes.

To date, more than 22 states are considering or intend to consider similar anti-immigrant measures, including the state of Massachusetts. The U.S. Conference of Mayors recognize that frustration over lack of Congressional action on immigration reform lead to passage of the Arizona law, but they remained steadfast in their belief that the immigration problem is a national problem that requires a federal solution.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa stated, "We are long overdue in changing our outdated and ineffective immigration policies. Rather than perpetuate the broken status quo and burdening state taxpayers with costs that are a Federal responsibility, Congress needs to step up to the plate and restore control and order of our broken immigration system. We must pass comprehensive immigration reform that would finally secure our borders and ensure the safety of all our citizens."

"The Arizona immigration bill will adversely affect America's international reputation as a place to do business, and it will cost America jobs at exactly the time we should be doing everything possible to create them," said New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. "Instead of misguided efforts by states, we need Washington to lead the way with comprehensive immigration reform that secures our borders, promotes economic growth, and honors our American heritage."

NHCSL Closing the Gaps: Middle Schools and ELL White Publication release
National Press Club
June 22nd, -- Washington, DC 9:30AM- 10:00AM

NHCSL Summer Executive Committee &BBA Meeting
July 25-29 – Louisville, KY

NHCSL 8th National Summit
November 18-21st

The National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators (NHCSL) is the preeminent organization representing the interests of 300 Hispanic state legislators from all states, commonwealths, and territories of the United States. Founded in 1989 as a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)3, NHCSL is a catalyst and advocate for joint action on issues of common concern, such as health, education, immigration, homeownership and economic development to all segments of the Hispanic community. NHCSL also works to design and implement policies and procedures that will impact the quality of life for Hispanic communities; serves as a forum for information exchange and member networking; an institute for leadership training; a liaison with sister U.S. Hispanic organizations; a promoter of public/private partnerships with business and labor; and a partner with Hispanic state and provincial legislators and their associations representing Central and South America. For more information visit www.nhcsl.org