Holy Trinity member Walter Rowen testified before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pension Committee on November 3. His story has been chronicled in a front page article (with picture) in the New York Times.
Walt, a 1975 graduate of the University of Colorado, started his professional career with Susquehanna Glass Co. in the fall of 1975 as the company Sales Manager. However, as the grandson of one of the founders of the company, he had been working in the factory in the summers since he was 15. In 1999, Walt and his wife Kate signed a purchase agreement with Walt’s mother, Nancy Roye thus formally transitioning the company ownership to the third generation of the Roye/Rowen family.
Walt and Kate have 3 children and live in Lancaster, PA. Here's his own account of the experience. My brush with the Health Insurance Reform issue and Washington all started around the end of September when a good business friend of mine called and asked if I’d mind if he gave my name to a lobbying firm working for small businesses. “The Small Business Majority”. http://www.
One of the major issues this group was focused on at the time was the rising costs of health insurance for small businesses, and since my company was just in the midst of re-negotiating our policy with horrifying increases, I had a compelling and relevant story. Consequently, when a NY Times reporter contacted this group for background information on a story she was writing about small business health insurance, they gave out the names of a few of their business members to be interviewed.
My name was included and I was contacted by the writer, Reed Abelson on Wednesday, October 21st. The story she was following was whether small businesses were seeing unusually high renewal increases now that a health care reform bill was making it’s way through congress with a fairly good chance of passage. I told her that the renewal for our current plan from our current provider was quoted at a 160% increase. (We later realized and my senate testimony reflects that the increase was only a meager 128%) Most insurance executives when asked were quoting average increases to small businesses in the 10-15% range, but our experience was proving otherwise.
After being interviewed by phone Wednesday, I was called back the next day to confirm a few other details and asked if I would be willing to be photographed for the article. She told me the article was tentatively scheduled to run in that Sunday’s paper, possibly as a front page article. It did run that Sunday, on the front page. You can read her article at;
A funny side note is that a condensed version of the article also appeared that same Sunday on the front page of the Lancaster paper. The photo and the last part of the article with information about our local business was left out.
I was sitting in my office the Monday after the article when I got a phone call from Senator Arlen Specter. He said he had just read the Times article and wanted to know more about our problems trying to secure affordable health insurance. After talking for about 10 minutes, he said he was hoping there might be a Senate hearing looking into why small businesses were being hit with these huge increases, and would I consider coming to Washington to testify? I told him I would and he said he’d be back in touch. Later that week, his aide contacted me with details about a Senate Hearing by the Health, Education, Labor and Pension committee to be held the following week and an invitation to testify. I was told I would have 5 minutes to make a statement before the committee Senators and then would be part of a panel for questions and answers.
On Tuesday, November 3rd, I went before the committee in the Hart Senate building. The hearing was set to begin at 2:30, so I drove to Washington that day. My wife Kate, my mother Nancy Roye, who is a political/news junkie, and my business partner Chad Yaw all came with me. The panel was made up of me and another small business owner from Iowa, the Insurance Commissioner from Kansas, a woman representing the Insurance Industry, and two economists who specialized in health insurance issues. If you have ever watched CSPAN, you’ve probably seen some Senate Hearings under way and you would know that although the committee might have 20-25 members, the Senators are coming in and out through out the hearing . I did meet Senator Specter when he first came into the room before the hearing started, as well as Senator Bennett of Colorado, Senator Roberts of Kansas and Senator Harkin of Iowa.
The hearing started on time with the Chairman, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa making some opening remarks. The first thing Senator Harkin said was he received a call from Senator Specter last Sunday about an article he had just read in the NY Times. He said the article was about small businesses experiencing huge health insurance premium increases, and that the article mentioned a business in his state, Susquehanna Glass Co. Senator Specter asked that he consider convening a hearing of his HELP committee to look into this. Senator Harkin was saying that the article I contributed to, and more directly the information I supplied to the reporter for the article was in fact the very reason we were all gathered that day. I was shocked and amazed!
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