The National Association of Health Underwriters (NAHU) recently presented Florida Insurance
Kevin McCarty
Commissioner Kevin McCarty with the Spirit of Independence Award for his work in preserving the role of the health insurance agent.
Every year, NAHU awards an individual for exhibiting an independent spirit and providing outstanding service to America with a focus on health care issues. McCarty is the first insurance commissioner to receive this prestigious award, and joins an esteemed list of past recipients who include key policymakers, White House advisors, and other health care leaders.
“I am honored and humbled to receive this award,” remarked Commissioner McCarty. “Rather than view this award as a culmination of service, I see this award as an inspiration to continue to confront challenges posed by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”
McCarty is president-elect of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC). In August of 2010, he was instrumental in promoting the passage of the unanimous NAIC resolution recognizing the importance of agents and brokers and the need to ensure their role as health reform implementation moves forward. A few months later, he helped lead a bipartisan attempt to amend the NAIC’s recommendations to the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on medical loss ratio (MLR) requirements to include a pass-through to exclude agent and broker commissions from the MLR calculation.
Though the NAIC ultimately had to table its pass-through efforts due to concerns about legal authority, McCarty negotiated the creation of a taskforce to address producer compensation arrangements in MLR with HHS.
The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation also held two public hearings and solicited testimony from industry experts as to how medical loss ratio requirements imposed by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act could potentially negatively impact Florida’s insurance marketplace.
NAHU represents 100,000 professional health insurance agents and brokers who provide insurance for millions of Americans.
NAHU is headquartered in Arlington, VA. For more information, please call Kelly Loussedes at 703-276-3835 or e-mail kloussedes@nahu.org.
Comments are closed.