New Congress, New Administration, New Ballgame

Ms. Lauren Inouye, Director of Government Affairs, AACN, described the political landscape of the 115th Congress. At this point, the future of ACA is unclear and a more favorable opinion is to repair or improve upon the current bill. The speaker also indicated this project will be up to the Republicans to lead as the Democrats do not have much of a megaphone regarding this issue as many of them are up for re-election in the near future. Speaker Ryan recently released a brief calling for a bill to:

Place a cap on tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance
Roll back Medicaid expansion
Repeal the individual mandate and the premium subsidies
Utilize state innovation grants to enhance Health Savings accounts.

Ms. Inouye noted the public interest/concern for the ACA is becoming more favorable.

Nursing has 100 National organizations and she stressed the need to speak as one voice; similar to insurance and physician groups. She added nurses can continue to mentor, join professional organizations, run for office, be expert witnesses, wield political capital and build relationships with Legislators to provide nursing perspective on important issues.

Special thanks to the education committee – Dr. Caryn Iverson, Chair;

Cori Armstead

Karen Baggerly

Christine Bradley

Traci Brooks

Judy Cash

Cole Edmonson

Val Kiper

Yvette Ong

Linda Plank

Jennifer Rainer

Susan Sayari