September 16th, 2008

Today at  a Capitol press conference the Pennsylvania Medical Society and the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania asked that lawmakers enact MCARE abatement to help doctors, and come to a compomise plan to help Pennsylvania’s uninsured this fall.

Republicans and Democrats came to a stalemate during budget season on how to best cover Pennsylvania’s uninsured citizens.  Unfortunately, the MCARE abatement extension, as well as the Pennsylvania Healthcare Cost Containment Council (PHC4) was tied to health insurance legislation, and therefore were caught in the middle of the debate.

The Associations’ press release states:

“Action on Mcare is needed to ensure that our state is able to retain physicians currently practicing in our state and to recruit new physicians,” said Carolyn F. Scanlan, president and CEO of the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania. “At the same time, passage of legislation to extend health care coverage for our state’s uninsured is also critical to ensuring access to quality health care for Pennsylvanians. Pennsylvania hospitals believe that both need to be considered by the General Assembly this fall. Both are important and essential to patient access, and are deserving of full, independent consideration in separate legislation.”