DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz's Inaugural Speech

Rev. Rodger McDaniel to speak on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Press Release from the Platte County Democratic Party:

The public is invited to hear Rev. Rodger McDaniel speak on the topic of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The talk will take place on Wednesday, May 25th at the First State Bank Conference Center in Wheatland at 7 p.m. The guest speaker will also welcome questions from the audience.

Rev. Rodger McDaniel served in the Wyoming legislature from 1971-1981, was the Democratic Party nominee for US Senate in 1982, practiced law for 18 years, and was the Director of Habitat for Humanity operations in Nicaragua from 1991-1992. He holds a Masters of Divinity Degree from the Iliff School of Theology, and is an currently the pastor at Highlands Presbyterian Church after serving as director Wyoming Department of Family Services and head of the state's mental health and substance abuse programs for 8 years.

Refreshments will be served following the Q&A. The event is being sponsored by the Platte County Democratic Party.

Hope you can make it!

Platte County Meetings with reps for Enzi, Barrasso and Lummis

Courtesy of Gail Heimbuck (thanks Gail!)

U.S. Senators Mike Enzi and John Barrasso and U.S. Congressman Cynthia Lummis are announcing that their representatives are scheduled to hold Office Hours in Platte County on Wednesday, May 18, 2011.
Their schedule will be:
Guernsey - Town Hall, 81 West Whalen Street, 10 – 10:30 am
Wheatland – Town Hall, 600 9th Street, 11 am – 12 pm
Area residents are encouraged to stop by during these times to discuss matters regarding the federal government. All comments and concerns will be relayed to Senators Barrasso and Enzi and Rep Lummis.
For more information, please call Jamie Gronski at 307-772-2451.

Representative Cynthia Lummis will be in Wheatland on Thursday, May 19th at the Platte County Chamber of Commerce Quarterly Luncheon that will held at the Wheatland Country Club beginning at Noon. She will be giving a Legislative update. Call the Chamber at 322-2322 to RSVP for the luncheon.

If you can attend one of these meetings, please do so! If you haven't heard, our three representatives were recently in the news for being supportive of a U.S. constitutional "repeal amendment" to give individual states to the ability to say "This part of our federal law doesn't apply to us." It's doubtful the legislation would pass through congress, but the implication is that they don't feel Wyoming should have to obey the laws of our union, our UNITED states. I feel the phrase "United we stand, divided we fall!" would be applicable to this situation.

News from the Wyoming Democratic Party Central Committee

We had a good turnout and and got fired up at Wyoming Democratic Party State Central Committee meeting. I'll be posting more information summarizing what I learned at the meeting, to help answer questions about our Democrat party and our function as members. Meanwhile, our Executive Director Bill Luckett summarizes some of the important highlights of the meeting:

The Wyoming Democratic Party State Central Committee convened today Casper College in the Sharon Nichols Auditorium, to elect state officers finalize the delegate selection plan for 2012 state and national conventions.

Central Committee members elected, by acclamation, the following leadership for a two-year term and to lead the party through the 2012 election cycle:
Chuck Herz of Moose as State Chair
Jodi Guerin of Laramie as Vice Chair
Sherry Shelley of Riverton as Secretary
Leslie Petersen of Wilson as Treasurer

The Central Committee amended the 2012 Delegate Selection Plan to hold County Conventions on April 14, 2012, in every county seat across the state. The selection of this specific date will make Wyoming eligible to earn two bonuses in the size of its delegation: one by virtue of waiting until April to hold its “first-step” events in the presidential selection process, and the other for holding its events on the same date as neighboring states. The Nebraska Democratic Party is currently planning to hold its event on April 14, and the Democratic parties of Kansas and Idaho are also considering whether to schedule their events on the same date, pending votes by their respective state committees.

After approving the amendments, the Wyoming Democratic State Central Committee today voted to formally adopt and submit the plan to the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee for approval. Under the plan Wyoming will elect 19 delegates and 2 alternates to the 2012 Democratic National Convention. In addition, the state should be eligible for four bonus delegates, pending the formal approval of the plan by the DNC.

The Wyoming Democratic Party Central Committee is composed of the Chairs, Vice Chairs, State Committeemen, and Committeewomen from each county, State Chair and Vice Chair, State Secretary and Treasurer, National Committeeman and Committeewoman, Legislative Representatives selected by the House Caucus and Senate Caucus, and the Young Democrats Chair, Vice Chair, State Committeeman, and State Committeewoman.

Wyoming Democratic Party Central Committee Meeting, April 30, 2011

The following is a letter from Bill Luckett, Executive Director of the Wyoming Democratic Party, regarding the upcoming Central Committee meeting in Casper. I would like to see a good turnout from Platte County, and encourage anyone interested to attend.

Folks,

The Central Committee of the Wyoming Democratic Party will meet in Casper on Saturday, April 30. The meeting will take place at Casper College, in the Sharon Nichols Auditorium in the McMurry Career Studies Building, which is at the extreme south end of campus. Directions: take Wolcott Street (which runs parallel to Center Street, just one block east) southbound toward Casper Mountain. Wolcott Street’s name changes into Casper Mountain Road, but it’s the same street. Go past 15th Street, past College Drive, past T-Bird Drive, and then take a right. THEN, take an immediate left onto Lisco Drive, circle around for 5 to 10 seconds, and turn left into the parking lot. The attached map should help some – just know that on this map, SOUTH is up, so our meeting place is at the top of the map.

Members of the Central Committee include county chairs, vice chairs, state committeemen and state committeewomen. But note that this meeting, like all of our meetings, is open to the public, AND we are going to focus heavily on training for county party leaders, so you may want to encourage others from your county who are not technically members of the Central Committee to attend. They’ll be most welcome. We also especially hope any members of the Legislature who are not technically members of the Central Committee will attend.

In addition to the training, the major orders of business will be to elect state party officers for the next two years and to approve our state party’s Delegate Selection Plan for the 2012 Democratic National Convention. Attached is a tentative agenda.

The Leadership Group of the Wyoming Democratic Party will meet in Casper on the previous day, Friday, April 29, for a session on Party strategy, as previously announced. That meeting is planned for 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Friday the 29th in the downstairs conference room of the Stratton Real Estate/Blue Cross Blue Shield building at 231 E. Midwest Ave., which is between Wolcott and Durbin streets just a half block south of 2nd Street. The Leadership Group and others who’ve indicated interest in attending will get further information on this session early next week.

I look forward to seeing you in a couple weeks!
Bill

Bill Luckett
Executive Director
Wyoming Democratic Party
(307) 473-1457 (office)
(307) 631-7638 (cell)
luckett@wyomingdemocrats.com

Learn About The Affordable Care Act

KD Kneeburg had her Letter to the Editor published this week in both the Casper Star Tribune and the Platte County Record Times. Read it here: Learn about health reform. If you visit the healthcare.gov page as suggested you will find some of the benefits of the Affordable Care Act already in place, including:

Providing Small Business Health Insurance Tax Credits: Up to 4 million small businesses are eligible for tax credits to help them provide insurance benefits to their workers. The first phase of this provision provides a credit worth up to 35% of the employer’s contribution to the employees’ health insurance. Small non-profit organizations may receive up to a 25% credit.

Cracking Down on Health Care Fraud: Current efforts to fight fraud have returned more than $2.5 billion to the Medicare Trust Fund in FY 2009 alone. The new law invests new resources and requires new screening procedures for health care providers to boost these efforts and reduce fraud and waste in Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP.

Expanding Coverage for Early Retirees: Too often, Americans who retire without employer-sponsored insurance and before they are eligible for Medicare see their life savings disappear because of high rates in the individual market. To preserve employer coverage for early retirees until more affordable coverage is available through the new Exchanges by 2014, the new law creates a $5 billion program to provide needed financial help for employment-based plans to continue to provide valuable coverage to people who retire between the ages of 55 and 65, as well as their spouses and dependents.

For more information on the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program, visit www.ERRP.gov

Providing Access to Insurance for Uninsured Americans with Pre-Existing Conditions: A Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP) will provide new coverage options to individuals who have been uninsured for at least six months because of a pre-existing condition. States have the option of running this new program in their state. If a state chooses not to do so, a plan will be established by the Department of Health and Human Services in that state. This program serves as a bridge to 2014, when all discrimination against pre-existing conditions will be prohibited.

Learn more about the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan

Extending Coverage for Young Adults:Under the new law, young adults will be allowed to stay on their parent’s plan until they turn 26 years old. (In the case of existing group health plans, this right does not apply if the young adult is offered insurance at work.) Some insurers began implementing this practice early. Check with your insurance company or employer to see if you qualify.

Providing Free Preventive Care: All new plans must cover certain preventive services such as mammograms and colonoscopies without charging a deductible, co-pay or coinsurance.

Eliminating Lifetime Limits on Insurance Coverage: Under the new law, insurance companies will be prohibited from imposing lifetime dollar limits on essential benefits, like hospital stays.

These are but a few of the positive changes made to assist people in keeping the cost of insurance under control and to help people achieve healthier lives.

The Constitution Party in Platte County

You might have seen in the Platte County Record-Times that the "Constitution Party" is going to hold a meeting and formalize their position in the county. I visited their website to read their platform. I had to disagree with them right from the start when reading the party preamble: "The Constitution Party of Wyoming gratefully acknowledges the blessing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as Creator, Preserver and Ruler of the Universe and of these United States."

This completely ignores Jefferson's call for separation of church and state, and it leaves me with no reason to believe they would follow the constitution and the intent of our forefathers at all. Further reading of their goals and platform issues leaves me flabbergasted at their willingness to promote the rights of only certain individuals. By that I mean the rights of certain, non-gay, pro-life, ten-commandment and end-of-days preaching individuals.

What is this? What happened to the melting pot? E. Pluribus Unum? We are a country of many religions and cultures, with the right for all to practice their beliefs, even the lack thereof. Let's leave the "One religion to rule them all" to other countries like Iran. This is NOT a christian nation, no matter how much they wish it was.