March 10th, 2009

Today, 3 bills from the Senate GOP’s HealthNET PA package moved out of the Senate’s Banking and Insurance Committee.  The bills are all intended to improve health care access and coverage.

The Senate Insurance Committee chairman Don White issued a release outlining the three bills that were approved:

Senate Bill 442, introduced by Sen. White, amends the Insurance Company Law to create a Mini-COBRA Small Employer Group Health Plan…  COBRA provides former employees, retirees, spouses, former spouses, and dependent children the right to temporary continuation of health coverage at group rates when coverage is lost due to certain specific events.  However, these benefits only apply to employers with 20 or more employees. SB 442 would extend the COBRA guidelines to group plans that employ 2-19 employees.

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Senate Bill 443, also introduced by Sen. White, would permit health insurers to withhold payment to providers in the event of a medical error.  ”Medicare has already stopped reimbursing providers for the cost of medical-related infections and mistakes and it is time that we give health insurance companies the same opportunity,” Senator White said.

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Senate Bill 189, introduced by Sen. Jake Corman, would extend health insurance coverage, at the expense of policyholders, to adult dependent children up to the age of 30 who are not married, have no dependents, are residents of the Commonwealth or enrolled as a full-time student at an institution of higher education and are not provided insurance coverage or eligible for government benefits.