Health-care advocates try to get foot in door

Delco Times

July 2, 2008
By Alex Rose

UPPER DARBY - Members of a statewide coalition supporting Senate Bill 1137, a Democrat-backed bill to provide medical coverage to some of the state's uninsured, again congregated at the doorstep of a local Republican politician Wednesday afternoon, urging action on the measure before the summer recess.

Coalition members already visited the office of state Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-9, of Chester, but it was Sen. Ted Erickson, R-26, of Newtown, they were focused on Wednesday, piling shoes outside his Township Line Road office to represent the 188 individuals members they said would die over the summer recess if the legislation is not enacted.

"We just want to point out that people in the commonwealth and the county are dying because they don't have health insurance," said John Meyerson, political director of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776. "They wait too long before they go see a doctor, if they go see a doctor at all, and they die - 700 a year in Pennsylvania."

There are an estimated 767,000 Pennsylvanians without access to health insurance, some 24,000 of whom live in Delaware County, according to the state Department of Health.

State Bill 1137 would establish the Pennsylvania Access to Better Care Program (PA ABC), a five-year, $1.4 billion plan to cover 272,589 uninsured Pennsylvanians first introduced by Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell in 2007.

The bill would also reform the state-run Medical Professional Liability Catastrophe Fund - or MCARE - abatement. A version of the bill passed through the state House of Representatives in March by a vote of 118-81, but was re-referred back to the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee last month. The state Senate also introduced its own health-care package called "HealthNET PA," which also addresses MCARE, a subject of particular concern to Erickson.

While ABC and HealthNET have essentially the same goal, they diverge on how to get there. Funding for ABC would come from a mix of federal Medicaid dollars, tobacco settlement funds and MCARE, as well as other, as-yet unknown sources, while the Senate GOP plan would be financed annually by existing revenue from a 25 cents-per-pack cigarette tax and surcharges paid by motorists cited for moving violations.

The two Senate funding sources raise about $225 million annually for MCARE, but only $125 million a year is needed to support the subsidy. The remaining $100 million would go to HealthNET, which could cover 507,000 individuals within the next two or three years, though a portion of that would be handled through clinical volunteerism.

There isn't likely to be any movement on health care before the summer break, though Erickson said Wednesday the coalition is barking up the wrong tree anyway - it's the governor who pulled health care off the table, not the Senate.

"I was willing to continue the discussion," said Erickson. "I thought we were making progress."

Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo said the governor thought it more appropriate to focus on getting the state budget details nailed down and continue to work over the health-care proposals with the Legislature during the summer.
"Budget negotiations are dominant at this time of year," he said.

The coalition is targeting five key Senate lawmakers, including Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, R-12, and Tomlinson, who represent Bucks and Montgomery counties. The group is urging them to bring the Rendell-backed bill to the floor for a vote, said Antoinette Kraus, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Health Access Network.

Kraus says her group doesn't know where Tomlinson stands on the ABC proposal. Greenleaf has told them he is uncommitted.

The Courier Times was unsuccessful in reaching either senator Thursday.

The nine health care advocates, including a representative of the largest health care union and Penn-PIRG, a public interest group, turned out for the shoe-in and left their stamp.

Before presenting a Tomlinson staffer with letters and petitions signed by 120 constituents supporting the ABC plan, they piled three 33-gallon trash bags and a small cardboard box filled with shoes beside the sign marking the district office, which is across the street from the senator's family owned funeral home business.

Greenleaf represents Upper Southampton, Warminster, Warrington and 14 municipalities in Montgomery County. Tomlinson represents Bensalem, Bristol Township, Bristol, Middletown, Langhorne, Langhorne Manor, Lower Southampton, Penndel, Hulmeville, Northampton, Wrightstown, Ivyland and Warwick.

DID YOU KNOW?

Nationally, roughly 6 percent of Americans were unable to obtain needed medical care last year due to cost, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. From 1998 to 2007, there was a generally increasing trend annually in the percentage of people who experienced a lack of medical care due to cost.

Between 2000 and 2006, almost a half million Pennsylvanians lost employer-based health insurance, second only to California, according to the Economic Policy Institute.