From the President’s Desk
Rep. Deborah Ferguson, DDS (AR) – NCOIL President
As we approach the 2023 NCOIL Annual Meeting, I would like to take a few moments to reflect on what we have accomplished together over the past few years, particularly this past one in which I have been honored to serve as NCOIL President.
Thomas B. Considine NCOIL CEO Rep. Tom Oliverson MD, TX Vice President I’d like to start out by thanking my fellow officers, legislative colleagues, and everyone who has attended our meetings and contributed to the advancement of NCOIL over the past few years. The work we have accomplished has happened because of, not in spite of, differing perspectives coming together to provide their viewpoints on the many issues impacting insurance public policy. That collaboration has been a key component of NCOIL’s success for over 50 years and it is vital that it continues.
In my first quarterly newsletter column as NCOIL President, I said that I hoped to help advance the organization from both substantive and legislative membership perspectives. As I write this, I am very proud of the progress we have made on each of those items. We have adopted model laws on emerging issues ranging from insurance underwriting transparency, to coverage for biomarker testing, to hospital price transparency requirements. We also held educational sessions on many important issues such as liability insurance for gun owners, the ongoing effort to achieve mental health parity, and different types of environmental, social and governance (ESG) public policy. Bringing legislators together from all over the country to tackle these issues has led to more informed public policy nationwide.
It’s important when we are developing these model laws and discussing important issues that our legislative membership is both bipartisan and representative of America. At both of our national meetings this year, we have seen a near perfect split of Democrats to Republicans among legislator attendees which is something that has not always been the case. As an organization that emphasizes a bipartisan approach to insurance public policy, it’s important to make sure we “practice what we preach.” This has allowed us to have discussions with many different viewpoints and reach consensus on difficult issues.
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