MoCo ACA Summit; OFA Survey; Nancy Pelosi's Gavel Report, +

1) I attended the Montgomery County ACA Leadership Summit held today.  A summary including photos can be found at this link. http://tinyurl.com/mocoacaph1028b

  [You can view the photos as a slide show 
http://tinyurl.com/pafdqnk  ] A very useful summit. I learned a lot.  My congrats to the organizers. 

Here are some key points:

Uma Ahluwalia, Director of the County HHS, stated that the main takeaway is the need for the county system to keep our agenda aligned with the State, insure as many people as we can, build a robust community based care system that capitalizes on the waiver and other efforts such as the local health improvement coalition, healthy montgomery and efforts to move the needle to wellness and prevention and improving the overall health of our community.

Carolyn Quattrocki, Executive Director of the Governor’s Office of Health Reform stated that the best way to facilitate enrollment right now, given the problems with the website, is to have folks setup accounts online, and then have them use the call center. If the application is complicated, the call center will refer applicants to the connectors.  

2)  Organizing for Action (OFA) Obama's grassroots organization, just initiated a survey to its members.  

Here is a link to its survey.  I encourage all to fill out the survey.   Answer our short Obamacare survey today.

3) From Nancy Pelosi's The Gavel

Affordable Care Act Success Stories – ‘It’s a great deal’

4) In other news from today

a) Charles Ornstein ‏@charlesornstein 10m

Should hospital ratings be embraced or despised? I ask four experts for my Tumblr: http://tmblr.co/ZRSS1xyqfCT2

I think ratings are of value, but not sure what is best. How do we get to the best?

b) From the business community.  31% are optimistic about the 2014 economic outlook up from 26% last year.  Health care costs top the list.  Majority say they understand parts of ACA.  See their plans re ACA    MORE.

c) Kaiser Health News:  

i) The administration reports that 476,000 applications have been filed through federal and state marketplaces but has not released enrollment figures. 

ii) The IRS indicates that it has delivered 330,000 premium subsidy calculations

 

iii) Texas Blue Cross and Blue Shield hosted a statewide ACA outreach event and drew more than 10,000 people to the Dallas Convention Center on Saturday.