Help raise funds on social media for the Foundation this November

When more people are aware of the impact an organization has on their community, the more likely they are to support that organization. This year, the Wisconsin Medical Society Foundation is asking friends and supporters like you to help us reach as many people as possible before Giving Tuesday.

Throughout November, we’ll share some of the stories of people who were impacted by the Foundation’s work. You can help more people hear those stories simply by sharing the posts. Sharing these stories with your friends and family on social media will hopefully let them know how important our work is so they’ll consider donating to the Foundation on Giving Tuesday.

Stories from organizations like the one about Keep Area Teens Safe will be featured. Your Giving Tuesday donations will continue to strengthen the Foundation’s grant program so we can help improve health equity and access in Wisconsin communities in 2023. When more people give, we can distribute more physician-informed and recommended grants.

With your help, Wisconsin Medical Society Foundation can make the greatest impact in 2023.

Please follow our pages on your preferred social media channel – Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter – and share each Giving Tuesday post throughout November. We hope you, your friends, colleagues and family will consider supporting Wisconsin Medical Society Foundation this giving season.

Join the fun early and help inspire others to donate!

Be sure to save the date & join us for these upcoming events!

District 6 Family Friendly Mixer
December 7, 6:00 p.m.
3 Sheeps Brewing
1837 North Ave.
Sheboygan, WI 53083
Sponsored by WisMed Assure & WisMed Financial

District 1 Family Friendly Mixer
December 8, 6:00 p.m.
Milwaukee, location TBD
Sponsored by Milwaukee County Medical Society

Contact Mikaela Powers for additional information

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Election Day is next Tuesday – what do the latest polls show?

Your political contributions have been made and at this point, the most important thing to do is vote and remind your colleagues, friends and family to vote on or before Tuesday! Visit myvote.wi.gov to preview your ballot and find your polling location.

In the meantime, check out these polling and prediction websites for the latest takes on what might happen next Tuesday:

State Outlook
If any poll approaches a “gold standard” for taking the pulse of the Wisconsin electorate, it’s probably the Marquette University Law School poll. Nationally-recognized pollster Charles Franklin directs the effort, which is one of the few entities focused on the Badger State’s snapshots and trends. The latest in a series of election-year polls, released November 2, shows a split electorate and razor-thin margins in the major statewide races. The poll also delves into Wisconsin voter attitudes on which topics are most important, how likely they are to cast a ballot in this election, and other interesting questions that are broken down by identified political party.

National Outlook
While Wisconsin’s statewide races for Governor, U.S. Senate, Attorney General and even Secretary of State have all garnered myriad press coverage, forests have been sacrificed for publications analyzing the national outlook (or those trees were felled to generate power for the pixels on your phones and computers). Partisan control of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives is up for grabs (with a decent chance that control of the upper house may have to wait for a Georgia runoff on December 6 if no candidate garners 50% of the vote). Various sites can provide an interesting mélange of polling updates and prognostications:

• Nate Silver’s website fivethirtyeight.com is a favorite of the media’s and generally considered pretty valuable on many issues in addition to political campaigns. FiveThirtyEight makes predictions on congressional and governors’ races and how that projects to possible majority control. They also have an interesting grading system for different polling outfits.
• If you’ve ever suffered through an election-year PowerPoint presentation from WisMed Chief Policy and Advocacy Officer Mark Grapentine, you’ve undoubtedly seen slides citing RealClearPolitics.com. While the home page’s suggested readings leave a bit to be desired on the bias spectrum (they’re almost always dominated by reads from conservative news outlets like the New York Post, the Boston Globe, etc.), the site does a great job gathering up polling for all the major races and presenting the data in meaningful ways. For example, RCP’s page on the Wisconsin Governor’s race shows the historic polling average, every poll that feeds that average and links to past Wisconsin Governor race polls/results that show how polls during past years compared to the eventual final results. These historical analyses then attempt to trace how past polls might have relied on faulty sampling that did not necessarily reflect the actual partisan makeup of the electorate – perhaps leading to fewer polls for the current cycle.  
• While he uncannily resembles the MyPillow guy, the University of Virginia’s Larry Sabato has built up longtime respect for his Crystal Ball publication – a combination of political analysis and handicapping that rates all the congressional and governor’s races. Throughout the election season the Crystal Ball publishes ratings changes in races – such as moving a race from “leans Democratic” to “likely Democratic.” Every ratings change seems to let loose a barrage of fundraising emails from both sides involved – usually with subject lines such as “We have the Momentum!” or “We need to Get out our Message!!”
• An interesting cousin to all of these sites is PredictIt, an effort from Victoria University in New Zealand that maintains an online marketplace for futures contracts on the outcomes of political and other events. It involves real money (capped at $850 per contract), allowing investors to place bets between a penny and $0.99 on the outcome of a race or event. This has led to analysis showing that those making bets did a better job predicting final results than other entities, and action by an independent federal agency – the Commodity Futures Trading Commission – to shut down the site by 2023 (the CFTC had allowed the site to exist since 2014). Theories abound as to why the shut-down order was made, but in any event, this might be your last chance to follow the accuracy of investors in election contests.

If the above has inspired you to make Wisconsin physicians more of a political force in the state, don’t put your money in PredictIt – instead make a contribution to WisMed’s political action committee, run by physicians and elevating medicine’s voice in state politics. Contact Heidi Green to make it happen.

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Diversity and Health Equity – free webinar for student and young physician members

Diversity and Health Equity, the final session in the “I’m a Doctor…Now What?” webinar series, will be presented this Sunday, November 6 at 7:00 p.m. The Wisconsin Medical Society partnered with the Arizona Medical Association and the Missouri Medical Association to develop this webinar series for student and early career physician members.

Participation is free, but separate registration is required. Register here for Diversity & Health Equity, which will be presented by Kimberly Ramseur, Senior Policy Analyst, AMA's Center for Health Equity, on November 6 at 7:00 p.m.

Please contact membership@wismed.org with any questions.

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Nominees sought for Society offices; deadline January 2

Nominations are now being accepted for several Wisconsin Medical Society (Society) offices, and all nomination materials are due to the Society’s Nominating Committee by Monday, January 2, 2023.

Candidates are sought for the following offices:

• President-Elect for 2023-2024
• AMA Delegate for 2023, 2024 and 2025 (three positions) – George Lange, MD, of River Hills (incumbent, eligible for reelection; 2024 and 2025)
• AMA Alternate Delegate for 2023, 2024 and 2025 (five positions) – Don Lee, MD, of Franklin (incumbent, eligible for reelection; 2024 and 2025)

All candidates must submit:

• a curriculum vitae not to exceed three pages
• a cover letter no longer than one page
• a completed candidate questionnaire for the office the candidate is seeking
  • the candidate questionnaire form for AMA Delegate and AMA Alternate Delegate
  • the President-elect candidate questionnaire form
• a completed Disclosure of Significant Affiliations (conflict of interest) form

The Nominating Committee will meet Friday, January 20, 2023, at 4 p.m. via Zoom. The Committee will interview and evaluate the candidates for Society offices and prepare a slate of nominees for presentation to the membership.

Those serving on 2022-2023 Nominating Committee are:

• District 1—Arthur Angove, DO; Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD; David Galbis-Reig, MD; Joshua Gershtenson, MD; Cynthia Jones-Nosacek, MD; Anthony Rieder, MD; David Tylicki, MD
• District 2—Lynn Broderick, MD; Michele Brogunier, MD; Amy Doherty, DO; Michael Grajewski, MD; Natalie Wheeler, MD
• District 3—Hilary Bingol, MD; Michael White, DO
• District 4—Lopa Kabir-Islam, MD; Michele Montgomery, MD
• District 5—Joanne Pasiuk, MD
• District 6—Bradley Burmeister, MD; Kenneth Pechman, MD
• District 7—Alison Jones, MD
• District 8—Leo Bay, MD
• Specialty Sections—Leslie Abitz, MD
• Resident/Fellow—Hannah Johnshoy, MD
• Medical Students—Kyle Cass, Medical College of Wisconsin; Alyssa Fleischman, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health

Communications to the Nominating Committee should be addressed to Mike Flesher, CEO, Wisconsin Medical Society, PO Box 1109, Madison, WI 53701. Communications also can be emailed to Stephanie Taylor. Access the candidate questionnaire for AMA Delegate and AMA Alternate Delegate or President-elect and the conflict of interest form.

Note: The Society will post the completed candidate questionnaire and cover letter on the Society’s website. The Society will post the conflict-of-interest form of all candidates selected by the Nominating Committee as nominees on the Society’s website after nomination by the Committee.

For questions or more information, email Stephanie Taylor.

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Affordability testing for health insurance

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) brought a lot of extra work to employers and insurance companies. Whether you are pro-health care reform or against it, per this Health Affairs article, the ACA has not made insurance more affordable. Many health insurance carriers have stated the ACA, Summaries of Benefits and Coverage, machine readable files and other changes imposed added costs to insurance companies, which simply passed these costs on to employers and employees in premiums.

Insurance premium affordability is very important because it allows for more money to stay with employers and employees and is a requirement for companies with 50 or more employees. As you may know, health care reform requires employers with 50 or more employees to offer a group health insurance option that is affordable and meets the minimal essential coverages or the employer can face a potential monetary fine (the 2022 fine was $4,120 annually per subsidized employee). Additionally, the employer should be testing to confirm the affordability requirement is being met for their employees’ premium charges. Based on health care reform’s 2023 rules, to be considered affordable in 2023, an employee cannot be charged more than 9.12% of the employee’s household income.

Do you need to test your affordability? Are you offering a plan similar to other health care companies in your areas? WisMed Assure is the only insurance agency in Wisconsin focused on health care clients and we would love to tell you more about what we can do! Please call me, Chriss Noffke, GBDS, CSFS, Vice President of Employee Benefits, at 608.442.3734 or email me.

WisMed Assure is the Wisconsin Medical Society’s insurance agency – profits earned support the mission of the Medical Society.

Originally posted in The Antidote October 26, 2022

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