Insurance commissioners from Florida, Kansas, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Pennsylvania have sent a letter to fellow state heads of regulation to inform them they would not attend a meeting with President Obama today.
The New York Times ran the letter:
Dear Colleagues,
This message is in response to President Jim Donelon’s communication regarding the meeting with President Barack Obama on Wednesday, November 20, 2013. We wanted to advise all of you that after thoroughly deliberating on this matter over the last few days we will not be participating in the meeting on Wednesday afternoon with President Obama. We made this difficult decision not to attend due to the fact that we were either not invited to do so, or were invited but have declined, but in all cases we have serious reservations about both the process and the policy issues surrounding such an important meeting.
Further, this meeting has not been discussed in any meaningful way with the entire membership of the NAIC nor have we worked to build consensus among the members on what our positions will be in the meeting. As we all know, the NAIC is made up of a group of extremely knowledgeable insurance regulators with very diverse views on the Affordable Care Act. While we greatly appreciate the opportunity to meet with President Obama, briefing the membership and working to build consensus on a meeting of this importance needs to occur prior to sitting down with him.
We hope that you all have a happy Thanksgiving with your families and we look forward to seeing you in a few weeks in Washington, D.C.
Sincerely,
Adam Hamm, Monica Lindeen, Michael Consedine, Kevin McCarty, Roger Sevigny, Sandy Praeger