Starting in the next month, we’re looking to start a video project, including short videos highlighting the stories of PPF members, documentation of our events, and longer videos that can get the word our about our campaigns and our vision. We’re interested in hiring a professional filmmaker or team to work on the project. You can find more details about the scope and nature of the work here. Email dan@putpeoplefirstpa.org if you’re interested in applying or if you have any questions about the project. Please share widely!
A Foot Deep in Snow and Marching into the Year Ahead
Put People First! PA held our first ever Winter Teams and Organizing Committees retreat In beautiful Shade Gap (Huntingdon County) on the weekend of January 23rd, 2016. This was the jump off point for the new year. We couldn’t have asked for a better setting: surrounded by mountains, trees, and yes snow, lots of it. Our retreat was also the weekend of the biggest snowstorm of the winter so far, but that wouldn’t stop us! Seventeen adults representing each PPF Team, Organizing Committee and the Campaign Advisory Board, along with three young people, braved the storm to be together as a family. Additionally, members who couldn’t be there in person called in for different portions of the retreat.
We met in teams to set goals and timelines for the year, addressed strategic questions across our teams, deepened our commitment to grassroots fundraising, learned about how our economic system works and studied history together. It was a great space to build our strategies and friendships. Listening and being a part of the different discussions and trainings, I learned so much about myself as a leader, and I saw the brilliance of our members and partners first hand. One of the best quotes was from Danelle who came by train from Johnstown with her two daughters: “I didn’t say it was going to be easy, I said I would do it.” Which reflects how I feel about the conditions ahead of us.
My greatest takeaway from that weekend was that real power comes from collectivity. Seeing our strength in each other and wanting to put each other first was re-energizing. I know that the people in PPF and our partners will be a large part of changing what is politically possible. Not just in Pennsylvania, but in our whole society.
I want to thank everyone involved with the retreat! The planning team (Sheila, Nijmie, Nick and Anna) and everyone who attended, set up, cleaned up, prepared food, played with young people, taught, led, called in and participated. Also thank you to all of those folks who were unable to make it in person. We know you were with us in your thoughts and in spirit.
With love,
Roger for the PPF Media and Communications Team
January 29th was the date of the last PA Insurance Department’s e-newsletter. The newsletter contained an article with the following headline: “Insurance Department Issues Guidelines for 2017 Health Insurance Rate Filings”. The guidelines can be found here.
What are these “guidelines” and what do they mean?
The newsletter goes on to say this:
“Commissioner Miller has made transparency a top priority for the department and believes transparency needs to work both ways. The department is striving to be more transparent with the industry about its priorities and processes, while at the same time trying to make more information about its insurance markets available to the public and understandable for consumers. To help achieve these goals, the department has posted on its website draft guidance that proposes requirements for information issuers must submit in their 2017 ACA-compliant individual and small group health insurance rate filings. The department’s goal with this guidance is to make sure the initial rate filings contain the information the department needs to evaluate fully the proposed rate changes and that the information is presented in a clear and consistent manner. The guidance will also outline and standardize what information contained in the rate filing the department intends to make public, when it will be made public, and how it will be presented to consumers.”
In other words, the “guidelines” lay out 1) what information insurance companies have to submit to the PA Insurance Department when they request premium increases for 2017 on the Affordable Care Act Marketplace 2) what information will be made public for healthcare consumers and how it will be made available.
At PPF, we believe that before any decisions are made to increase health insurance premiums on ACA plans, there should be public hearings for the Insurance Department to share information on the proposed increases and to hear from individuals and families about how these increases might impact them. Currently, the guidance does not include public hearings as part of the process.
In addition, the Insurance Department asked for feedback by February 5th, giving a comment window of only one week on a process that stands to impact hundreds of thousands of people across PA – this year 150,000 people were impacted by plans that saw premium increases across the Commonwealth.
Below is our response to the request for feedback. Please read it and join today if you’d like to help we ensure that PA Insurance Department is accountable and transparent to us and that public hearings are held before any additional rate increases are approved.
Here is PPF’s response to the request for feedback:
We shared the draft rate filing guidance with our membership and had the following comments:
Thank you for asking for public comment on the guidance, although the window of time was quite short, and the guidance is not presented in language that everyday people can understand, leading us to believe that it was not intended for healthcare consumers.
One of the biggest recommendations we have for changes to the guidance is thatpublic hearings are necessary to inform consumers about proposed rate hikes and hear how such hikes might impact them before decisions can responsibly be made by the Insurance Department. Otherwise what we have is a completely one-sided process which privileges major corporations over individuals and families throughout the Commonwealth.
Additionally we make the following recommendations:
1) Require written and publicly available decisions on rate cases.
2) Require a justification of overhead.
3) Include consumer representation.
4) Calculate rate hikes based on modes instead of averages.
5) Factor in fundamental trends of changing utilizations based on preventative and chronic care when using past experience.
6) Require cost containment/savings and improving preventative medicine.
We would like to set up a meeting with your office to discussion these recommendations further.
by PPF Member Danelle Morrow
The philosophy of love goes back as far as time. Love is never-ending, and stronger than the flow of a river roaring down the mountain rushing toward the ocean.
There are many types of love, and though everybody perceives it differently, the philosophy remains the same.
The term eros (Greek erasthai) is used to refer to that part of love constituting a passionate, intense desire for something; often thought to be referred to as a sexual desire, bringing the common day term “erotic.”
On the other hand, the Greek word philia expresses a fondness and appreciation for one another, either because the friendship is useful, or because the character and values of another are pleasing. Objectively it can be seen as those who share our dispositions, who hold no grudges, who are likeminded, who are temperate and just, or who admire us as we admire them.
Still though, my personal favorite philosophical view is called Agape, it refers to the paternal love of God for man and of man for God, but is extended to include a brotherly love for all humanity. Agape draws from elements from both eros and philia in that it seeks a perfect kind of love that is at once a fondness and a passion without the necessity of reciprocity. The concept is expanded on in the Judaic-Christian tradition of loving God: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5) and loving “thy neighbour as thyself” (Leviticus 19:18). The love of God requires absolute devotion that is reminiscent of Plato’s love of Beauty, which involves an erotic passion, awe, and desire that transcends earthly cares and obstacles.
You may ask yourself, How does this tie into Put People First? I will gladly explain. Right now we are focused on universal healthcare, but once that is accomplished, we will be moving on to bigger and better things. We fight back against oppression and poverty through grassroots organizing, and those grassroots we created began with love for one another, without regard for color, religion, social status, or disability.
In Put People First, I have come to know some amazing people, and we are invested in each other’s well-being. Members and field organizers of Put People First have the ability to love, not just those who they know or who are familiar, but to love all people as human beings. I am proud to be apart of this organization and proud to watch the growth take place as we begin to build our way to a new revolution for the people, by the people.