Imagine being on a panel with a federal agency regulator and several regulated agencies and the regulator asks a dangerous question and rather than all of the panelists clamming up they all shriek substantive responses that put their company’s directly in the regulator’s line of sight (while he takes notes.)
That’s the CMS dude sitting next to me, and the Cigna lady next to him and yeah this was wild.
Just unreal.
And somehow that was one of the least crazy things that happened today at this absolutely wild ACA stakeholder meeting in SLC.
Czar talking TCPA!!!
SO the Czar spoke for 50 minutes and received the broad-ranging accolades you would expect.
Dozens of people came up to me afterward to applaud my fine presentation and broader efforts to protect people in the industry.
It was great, but also very par-for-the-course.
But then the panel.
Just an elite gathering of folks. And we discussed all manner of issues impacting ACA enrollment and lead generation/marketing.
But fireworks were everywhere. Attendees pushed a carrier representative suggesting they were keeping money owed to the government. Another pushed the CMS rep, claiming the government was failing to do enough to stop fraud.
And then someone suggested CMS should be responsible to vet lead generators and things got wild.
Fireworks.
The fireworks didn’t end there, however.
Soon a meeting of the ACA Coalition took place and it was just fireworks. People are pissed about bad actors defrauding consumers but also about rampant re-applications and policy switching.
Team having fun–notice ALL the swag taken (also check out Puja’s bag!)
But so much of the bickering was centered on the agency losses when the consumer was the real victim. When I raised that issue it raised a firestorm.
Just madness.
But SO MUCH FUN.
Nothing I enjoy more than a packed house of loose cannons, and this group is absolutely out of hand.
Meanwhile rumblings of high fraud are ubiquitous and I am going to get to the bottom of everything (you know how I do.)
Anyway, was supposed to head to Florida tonight to speak to the America’s Credit Union event tomorrow but this is just too much fun. (The Countess will handle it and do a great job without me.) So off to an after hour event that is sure to get… lively.
I love this stuff.
More soon!