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.

Factcheck.org summarizes the exaggerations the GOP in Iowa

Well, I guess now is as good as a time as any for the GOP to start slinging mud and making irresponsible statements that simply don't correlate with the facts. Here is a link to Factcheck.org's summarization of the exaggerations made by wannabe presidential hopefuls during a get together in Iowa on March 26th, 2011. Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Haley Barbour all manage to distort reality with made up figures. I would say 83% of their information is wrong, which is a number I pulled out of thin air, because hey, if they can do it, why can't I? Oh yeah, because I'm kinda partial to REAL information.

News You Can Use: April 4, 2011

GOP anti-appropriators break up the spending party Cynthia Lummis, in her second term, is the league leader in bucking the committee leadership -- she voted against Rogers and Young 16 times during the HR 1 ...

Barrasso scrutinizes mineral exports John Barrasso, R-Wyo., dashed off a letter of his issues with uranium mining companies operating in Wyoming to the President of the United States, and may have uncovered a potential international incident. Uranium extraction in Wyoming continues to be ...

Obama's energy policy is doublespeak - .: United States Senator ... U.S. Senator Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., made the following comments following a speech by President Obama today regarding his energy policy. ...

Letter to the Editor - Terry Jones

Terry Jones has a Letter to the Editor appearing this week. I have seen it in both the Platte County Record-Times and The Casper Star-Tribune. Go check it out!

Group stops 'robocalls' to Wyoming

After a number of complaints, a nonprofit advocacy group fighting the new federal health care lawannounced Thursday that it’s suspending all automated phone calls to Wyoming.

Republicans and Democrats around the state have complained for several days of receiving as many as three “robocalls” in an hour from Repeal HealthCare Act, a nonprofit 501(c)4 group that’s a project of the conservative political action committee Restore America’s Voice. More from the Casper Star Tribune.