Cigna has 700 employees in their Visalia office that work on these expatriate insurance policies. Cigna announced that it might have to relocate these 700 jobs, along with 500 similar jobs in Delaware, overseas in order to avoid the ACA requirements and to stay competitive with foreign insurance plans.
In a city the size of Visalia, losing 700 jobs would make a big dent. Accordingly, everyone jumped on board to see what could be done about carving out an exception to the ACA relating to expatriate health care insurance. The Visalia city manager, council members, members of the Board of Supervisors and others traveled to Washington D.C. to speak with those in the federal government. Visalia employed Van Scoyoc and Associates, a bipartisan, full-service federal government affairs firm and lobbying company located in Washington D.C., to make our voice heard. Van Scoyoc arranged for councilman Bob Link to meet with Representative Kevin McCarthy and city manager Mike Olmos to meet with Senator Harry Reid to discuss these concerns. Our U.S. Representative Devin Nunes (R-California) and John Carney (D-Delaware) crossed party lines to introduce House Resolution (HR) 4414, creating an ACA exemption for expatriate insurance policies. Lobbyists for Cigna also worked behind the scenes. California senators Feinstein and Boxer worked with their Delaware senate counterparts to try to pass a version of HR 4414 in the senate, but were unsuccessful. In the end, our representatives were successful in getting the “Expatriate Health Coverage Clarification Act” included in the recent $1.1 trillion fiscal year 2015 Omnibus Bill, which was passed by both the house and senate, and has now been signed by President Obama. When the Omnibus Bill was being considered by the senate, your city officials were telephoning our senators to encourage passage.
In summary, this was a team effort which was successful in saving these jobs for Visalia. It shows the value of the city having a lobbyist in D.C. to make our voice heard when such issues arise. We want to thank our representatives, senators, Cigna, congressional staff, and local leaders who traveled to Washington, made personal phone calls, sent emails and were engaged on this issue. It goes to show that bipartisanship can still get things done in D.C.
Pickleball Anyone?
Visalia can now brag that it has its own pickleball courts in Recreation Park. A dedication ceremony was held on Saturday, December 13. These two courts have similar dimensions and layout to a badminton court and rules similar to tennis. Pickleball is played with paddles and a wiffle ball, which can be purchased locally at Dick’s Sporting Goods or online. Pickleball was invented in the mid 1960’s and is especially popular amongst our senior citizens, particularly those that played tennis in their younger days. Stop by and check out this new sports activity in Visalia, and visit the Pickleball Visalia facebook page. The City of Visalia recreation department will be having instructional classes in pickleball in the spring. Quoting from Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come.” We look forward to active use of these courts, and perhaps more such courts in the future.
If you have questions or topics regarding the city which you would like to have addressed in future articles, please email Warren at wgubler@ci.visalia.ca.us, or call (559) 713-4400 x 3313. For past articles, visit directfromwarren.blogspot.com.
Warren Gubler
Visalia Vice Mayor
