John Morrison

John Morrison (born 1961) is an American politician and attorney who was the Montana State Auditor and Insurance and Securities Commissioner from 2001 to 2009, serving two full terms. He was the founding president of the National Alliance of State Health CO-OPs (NASHCO), which includes all Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans authorized and funded under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. He is also co-founder and vice-chair of the Montana Health CO-OP, one of the first CO-OPs to be approved for funding by the United States Department of Health and Human Services. Morrison is a senior partner at Morrison Sherwood Wilson Deola, a public interest law firm based in Helena, Montana. In 2006, he ran unsuccessfully against Jon Tester in the Montana Democratic primary for the United States Senate nomination.

In the 1990s, Morrison was lead Montana counsel in the state's Tobacco litigation and represented the New York Times, NBC and other national media in the Unabomber case. Morrison and his wife are co-authors of a Montana political history book: Mavericks: The Lives and Battles of Montana's Political Heroes. Morrison also authored or co-authored other published works on topics ranging from health insurance to climate change.

Morrison served as Montana State Auditor and State Insurance and Securities Commissioner from 2001–2008. He promoted and implemented Insure Montana, a small business health insurance pool with discounted premiums paid for by an increase in the tobacco tax. Morrison had been advocating the use of increased tobacco tax revenue to reduce health insurance premiums since 2002. Insure Montana won national awards, and became a model for the premium assistance provisions of the Affordable Care Act. John Morrison also drafted Montana's Initiative 155 (I-155) and led the campaign that created Healthy Montana Kids, which instituted a broad reform and massive expansion of children's health coverage. In the first year of operation, it brought over $200 million in new federal matching dollars into Montana and covered 10,000 additional children. Healthy Montana Kids now covers 91,000 Montana Children.

As Insurance Commissioner, Morrison banned "discretionary clauses" in group health and disability insurance plans and successfully defended the ban at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in Standard Ins. Co v. Morrison, 584 F. 3d 837 (2009). Through the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), Morrison led passage of a similar model law that has been adopted in more than a dozen states, including New York, California, Michigan, Illinois, and Texas. Morrison also led NAIC opposition to Association Health Plans and fraudulent health insurance.

Morrison chaired the Health Insurance and Managed Care Committee and the Market Regulation and Consumer Affairs Committee of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, as well as the NAIC's September 11 emergency task force. As the NAIC's International Vice Chair for Asia, Morrison helped establish the relationship between U.S. and Chinese insurance regulators and, with the US Trade Representative, represented the U.S. in the US-China Insurance Dialogues, WTO Doha Round, in Hangzhou, PRC.

After leaving office, Morrison was appointed by the Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner to replace former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop on the boards of the Senior Health Care Oversight Trust and the Senior Health Insurance Company of Pennsylvania (SHIP) and chaired both boards in 2011. Morrison also serves on the board of the Center for Health Policy Development, parent organization of the National Academy of State Health Policy.

In 2006, Morrison was a candidate for the U.S. Senate in a contested Democratic primary with Jon Tester, the President of the Montana Senate at the time. Morrison initially polled ahead of incumbent Republican Conrad Burns, and was leading in the primary race, but it narrowed to a "deadlock" a week prior to the election. Morrison was beaten in the Democratic primary by Tester, who then defeated Burns in November.

During the Democratic Primary, it was revealed that Morrison had an extramarital affair in 1998. Morrison and his wife remained together despite the affair. According to the Missoula Independent, the woman involved later married the principal of companies investigated by the state auditors office while Morrison was there. Former staffers reported to the Independent that they repeatedly advised Morrison to stay out of the case entirely to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest, but they felt that he had not. Morrison's affair reportedly did not affect the outcome of the probe, and the individual investigated was convicted of fraud.The case in question was handled by outside attorney Beth Baker due to Morrison's various involvements.Baker said she was given significant discretion in handling the case.

In 2012 Morrison, who had become President of the National Alliance of State Health CO-OPs, and supported federal low interest loans to CO-OPsargued against Congressional plans to cut the loan funds from the federal budget. Morrison said the 24 existing CO-OPs would increase competition and innovation in the health insurance marketplace.In October 2013, he released a study showing that premiums were 8.4% lower in states that had a CO-OP than in states that did not. In February 2014, Morrison estimated that 300,000 Americans had signed up for CO-OPs to date despite early technical problems.

In 2015 he testified before the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations about shutdowns of CO-OPs in various state healthcare exchanges; he said that the situation was the fault of both the Obama administration and Congress. The Obama administration's decision to forbid CO-OPs from limiting the number of policies they sold while at the same time limiting their ability to raise money ruined their finances, and Congress' cutting loans available to them also harmed their financial viability.