John Baer: Once again, prognosis for Pa. health-care
progress is grim
Monday, June 16, 2008
Philadelphia Daily News
By John Baer
Daily News Political Columnist
I SAID IT before. I'll say it again.
Until state lawmakers help hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians without adequate health care or insurance, they should forgo their own taxpayer-financed coverage.
Or ban political contributions from health providers and insurers.
Maybe that would spur some action.
Apparently, little else will.
As another legislative deadline nears - the budget is due two weeks from today - health-care issues look sickly.
The ongoing stall is callous.
Remember, 71 percent of the state's estimated 767,000 uninsured adults (nearly 140,000 in Philadelphia) have jobs and pay taxes.
And what do they get?
Partisanship and the privilege of helping to pay for the salaries and health benefits of the very lawmakers who won't help them.
Gov. Ed, a year and a half ago, proposed insurance for those in need as part of a broad initiative, "Prescription for Pennsylvania."
(He also pledged to lose 25 pounds, though there's no evidence he did.)
The proposal shoulda been cardiac paddles shocking life into the issue.
Didn't happen.
Yeah, the Democratic House in March passed a bill to cover 273,000 uninsured adults within five years, funded by various state sources and federal Medicaid dollars, committing $1.1 billion annually by 2013.
But the Republican Senate has other plans.
Last week, it offered $100 million to help 507,000 people, reflecting a time-worn, often Republican, theme: Do more with less.
Except that it does less (than the Democratic plan) for more (people).
It offers care, not insurance, at clinics, to be funded through tax credits to businesses that volunteer to support the clinics.
Hmm. Corporate largesse in a state where seven of 10 companies pay no corporate income tax. Good luck with that.
It also calls for a voluntary physicians' program (on grounds, one assumes, that physicians have so much time on their hands).
Let's see: no insurance, free clinics, voluntary funding and service.
Ebenezer Scrooge meets "a thousand points of light"?
Oh, and the GOP argues that close to half the uninsured are 18-to-34-year-olds declining access to insurance through employers.
Sen. Ted Erickson, R-Delaware, a sponsor of the package, tells me, "Younger people don't want to spend the money."
Perhaps.
But maybe younger people can't spend the money because they need it to pay off school loans or buy groceries or gas.
Meanwhile, Republicans label Rendell's plan too costly and old-line Democratic. Montgomery County GOP Sen. Rob Wonderling calls it "archaic and lethargic . . . New Deal thinking."
So both sides are miles apart heading toward another legislative summer break.
And what galls me is this: If there's one issue on which partisanship should stand aside, it is health care.
It's an issue touching every citizen - physically, financially or both.
Rendell, who consistently accepts less than his always-sweeping proposals, sought bipartisan health-care "working groups," precisely so the issue wouldn't languish in the face of a budget deadline.
Didn't happen.
When I mention to Erickson that GOP leaders declined the offer of a joint focus on health care, he says, "As far as I know, that's correct."
Well, as far as I know, there's no excuse for not working together to combine elements of various proposals, share the credit and offer something to the uninsured.
It's the right thing to do and saves everyone with insurance (by some estimates $680 per year per family) now paying for those without. Pennsylvania just joined a majority of states by finally passing a statewide smoking ban; that's a start and a public service.
Now lawmakers should address the uninsured.
(Waiting for Congress sure isn't working.)
It's time elected officials with tax-paid health insurance and the security it provides find a way to extend the same to those they're sworn to serve.