A Love Letter to Rep. Porter

DEAR REPRESENTATIVE PORTER - 
 
We think we may love you. At first, we weren’t sure if it was the lingering Valentine’s Day feelings, but upon further reflection, it’s that floor speech where you laid it out with plain common sense about HB 1114 (Insulin Mandates).
 
See, you get us. You understand that this is about the mandate at its core, not about insulin. You recognize that rising healthcare costs impact all consumers, and you acknowledge that existing measures are already in place—making additional mandates (aka government intervention) unnecessary.
 
We love that you grasp what’s happening here, that you listen to both sides, and that you prioritize protecting our business community from unnecessary burdens.
 
And when you pointed out that healthcare mandates never come off the books, even as technology evolves—well, that was just poetic. You are absolutely right!
 
Your private-sector-driven approach makes us swoon. Your past two Chamber Champion scores—98% and 100%—speak for themselves. You consistently vote pro-business, and we see it. We think the world should see you as we do. Returning to this healthcare mandate—we sincerely appreciate your willingness to stand up for our members, who will bear the UNNECESSARY burden if this passes the Senate.
 
In closing, while we truly appreciate the professionalism and logic you brought to this conversation, we do have one final question: Do you have fan club cards available?
 
LOVE AND HUGS - 
Greater North Dakota Chamber
 

REP. TODD PORTER'S FLOOR SPEECH FROM HB 1114 – Word for Word, because we loved ALL THE words.  
 
I would be remiss if I didn't stand up and talk about mandates and what they do to small businesses. Every time we put a mandate in place, it raises the premiums to a small business which then is passed on to their employees which then is passed on to the rest of the consumers - whether they pay for that service or product or not.  
 
Mandates are not good for our health insurance industry for our health insurance providers. If we're going to start cherry picking diseases, whether it is diabetes or high cholesterol or COPD or congestive heart failure, they're all diseases that you can't help. If you get it, are we going to pay for them all? Is that what we're going to end up doing? Are we going to turn to a universal health product like Canada, that's broke and raise taxes and pay for everyone's chronic disease in everyone's situation? I don't think we can afford to do that.
 
The previous speaker said that mandate on the PERS plan actually showed that the $25 cap that is currently approved by all three major providers in the state of North Dakota is more than enough to cover them without a mandate. Let me repeat that - the previous speaker said that the $25 is more than enough. All three of our major providers, which cover probably 80- 90% of the lives in North Dakota. It covers it. It's enough without a mandate. It's enough.
 
Once it's on the books, new technology, new emerging things start coming out. I would tell you that the insulin of today is not even close to the insulin that was previously talked about. As far as the same makeup when we're developing and making all these new medications that are out there, you're going to get new things. Patients want the latest and greatest even though something less that isn't being advertised on TV still works. They go to their doctors. They go to their healthcare providers. They go to their nurse practitioners. They say, ‘hey. I saw that on TV. That's what I want for me. That's what I want for my family,’ but whether it works or not any better. No one knows.
 
Mandates just are not good business. When we, all in the small business world, provide health insurance for our employees. Having another mandate, on top of another mandate, just does one thing to us like it raises our healthcare premiums, unnecessarily in this case, because we've already been told it's working at $25. Please vote red.