HB 1660, SB 400, Pennsylvania's Single Payer Universal Health Care Bill

My name is Kate Loving Shenk of Nursing Career
Transformation. com and a Staff Registered Nurse
in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

As a Health Care Professional, I see people who are
between jobs, who are in retirement, or starting a
new business, or who want to go back to school, or
move from one job to another; and they lose health
coverage in the process, sometimes with catastrophic
results when accidents or acute health conditions occur
during these times.

When people fall in these categories of the uninsured,
health care workers, patients and tax payers all have to pay.

From my perspective, when a patient arrives at the
hospital with a large brain stem bleed because of a
major stroke after he stopped taking his blood pressure
medicines when his retirement plan unexpectedly
dropped his health insurance, and we resuscitate him just
long enough for his family to arrive and say their goodbyes;

And this and similar situations occur where patients
between jobs and in retirement are forced to cut back and consequently
die as the economy worsens, suffice to say, Nurses and Doctors see
these sorts of examples all the time.

Burnout in my profession results because of a profit
driven health care system that isn't taking care of anyone, and Nurses and
Doctors are leftto pick up the pieces.

Or take the example of a man between jobs without health
insurance, with a job interview the day after his car slipped on black ice,
was flown by helicopter to an area trauma unit, and spent 2 ½ days in
Intensive Care before he was moved to a regular hospital room.

He sustained major injuries to his spine, including
fractured and compressed vertebrae, and shattered discs.

This man was incapable of attending the job interview, of
a job he was favored to get, and now has a huge hospital bill after
major surgery to his spine, transport by helicopter, and an extended
hospital stay.

Or the example of an 89 year old woman, Merle Kuznik, who
broke her right hip after suffering a major stroke on her left side. The
nursing home she was in insisted that Merle Kuznik apply for Medicaid to
pay for expenses not paid by Medicare.

Pennsylvania is on the threshold of breaking new ground
because of her Single Payer Universal Health Care initiative, HB 1660 and SB 400, which, if passed, will make health care available to every Pennsylvanian.

Health Care For All PA is taking this initiative to thenext level, which I will explain shortly.

Meanwhile, the press ignores these Bills.

Meanwhile, the HighMark/Independent Blue Cross (IBX) merger is building its case.

Meanwhile, Governor Rendell plans to pass PA ABC which will cover only
200,000 Pennsylvanians, out of the 1.4 million who currently have no health insurance at all.

This will make a bad situation much, much worse here in the Commonwealth.

But no matter how media and corporate monopolies ignore the inevitable, we
are heading toward Single Payer one way or the other.

Single Payer is publically funded while the Blues are privately funded.

The insurance companies compete against the for profit powers represented by
Aetna and United and all the rest while Single Payer is designed for the
public good.

One enriches shareholders and an elite few while the other
is designed to provide quality, affordable health care for everyone here in Pennsylvania.

The IBX/Highmark merger has prompted concern among critics about competition in the insurance market and clout the new company would wield in setting reimbursement rates for hospitals and doctors, an article in Pittsburgh's "Business Times", May 26, 2008 states.

The consolidation of IBX and Highmark is the largest insurance company deal
ever proposed within any state and will create a $22 billion dollar company.

Our grassroots group, Health Care 4 All PA, supports Single Payer because it's
the best way to fulfill our mission: to bring quality, affordable health care to all
Pennsylvanians.

We've decided to protest the merger because it runs
counter to our mission.

Governor Rendell has cut a deal with Highmark and IBX to help them get the merger
approved in return for their help, financial and otherwise, in passing PA ABC.

PA ABC replaces Adult Basic which provides health insurance to approximately
55,000 poor Pennsylvanians.

Approximately 95,000 are on the waiting list and these plus 120,000 others would
in theory gain access to PA ABC.

However, because there is a 4% annual increase by the health insurance companies
after the second year, and add to this increased rates for participants under PA
ABC than they were paying under Adult Basic, you can safely project that poorer
Pennsylvanians will be forced to lose health insurance coverage.

People on the waiting list will potentially be withdrawing their names.

The Governor is not telling us the truth: that at the very least, PA ABC is
under funded and enrollment ends when the money is spent.

Yet Rendell continues to assert that PA ABC will cover everyone.

Additionally, PA ABC will also reinstate the State subsidy for malpractice
insurance which the Governor had withdrawn previously, in the attempt to gain
support for PA ABC.

Malpractice would only be reinstated, however, for those physicians who add
the PA ABC patients as enrollees, with payout at low Medicaid-like fees.

Health Care 4 All PA needs to empower those legislatures who resist this ploy
by helping them to see that resisting this makes moral sense.

(Thanks to Jerry Policoff for making available the above statistics on Adult
Basic and PA ABC. Jerry will be writing a more comprehendsive article on this
very topic in the days to come).

Governor Rendell is on record as saying he will sign HB 1660 if it comes across
his desk.

Our grassroots efforts have many dimensions. We see the
corruption of the insurance companies and we see the politicians who pander
to them.

But to date, we have 43 sponsors for HB 1660 and SB 300 in the State House
and Senate.

Our growing grassroots movement needs to become aggressively disciplined and
organized to fight the forces of ignorance here in Pennsylvania.

So we have taken it to the next level which is: Gaining support for an
economic impact study to outline exactly how much Universal Access to health
care will cost in the Commonwealth.

We need the economic impact study because our group is not a legislative body.

The study does not guarantee passage, but makes the case for passage.

Keep in mind that Rendell's PA ABC did not have an economic impact study.

Sounds like it could have used one.

The Casino and Gaming initiatives had no economic impact study.

The bar is set higher for us.

We've hit every standard and crossed it.

We will not back down.

We will get the money for the economic impact study in the
Autumn of this year.

Then, Now, Forever is replaced with:

Now, Tomorrow and Forever as we make the transition to Single Payer here in Pennsylvania!!