October 9th, 2008
With legislative action this week on PA’s dog law and energy legislation, there’s unfortunately not much for anybody to cheer about on the health care front.
The Senate ended the 07-08 voting session yesterday, without a health care expansion compromise, without re-authorizing PA’s health care watch-dog agency PHC4, and with no agreement on MCARE abatement for state doctors.
On Tuesday, Rendell reduced his original state-subsidized health insurance proposal from 274,000 adults to 167,000, removing new tobacco taxes from the funding sources. Rendell’s plan is a step up from adultBasic because it includes prescription drug and mental health coverage. Senate R’s still would not agree to the cost, worried about a $2 billion deficit that’s expected by next year. GOP Leadership contended that sustainability wasn’t there since the federal dollars Rendell is relying upon could dry up, and other funds weren’t promised for more than a few years.
In response, the Senate GOP extended an offer to give $50 milllion dollars to the adultbasic fund, adding 14,000 people to the exsiting program. The Administration would not accept the drastically scaled back compromise offer, since there are 118,000 people currently on the adultBasic waiting list. Because the Republicans plan only expands adultBasic (i.e. no prescription drug or mental health services) it does not qualify to recieve federal funding, which an Administration spokeswoman called “foolish.”
With their inability to compromise on a plan, the state’s uninsured citizens lost out on any type of expansion for state subsidized health insurance this year.
In the last few weeks, Republicans passed bills to use $30 million to fund free community clinics and to allow young-adults to stay on their parents insurance plan until the age of 30. If these measures make it through the House in November they will be the only enacted measures this session to expand health care access for the uninsured.
Read more about these issues in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer, Patriot-News, and a story from the Associated Press.
**HealthPointPA readers: how do you feel about the non-agreement on healthcare reform? What do you think should have been done? Leave your comments/thoughts below.**
November 6th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
[...] the Gov. will most likely have to settle for an incredibly scaled back plan like Republicans offered at the end of this past session, with funding for free state-wide clinics, [...]