Gov’s Health Care Plan Draws Criticism from State Rep’s DiGirolamo & Davis

Last  week, State  Rep.(R-Bucks), urged the Department of Public Welfare (DPW) to accept Medicaid expansion dollars while allowing Pennsylvania to continue to negotiate with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) during hearings on Governor Tom Corbett’s Healthy PA Plan while State Rep Tina Davis wants the plan dropped altogether.

“We need to help individuals sooner rather than later,” DiGirolamo said. “While the Healthy PA plan continues to be negotiated with HHS, reports show that it could take as long as a year to a year and a half for the federal government to tell us what it will accept or not. Our citizens don’t have time to wait. When they have a serious illness, they cannot wait up to 18 months to see a physician or get the medication they need to get healthy.”

DPW is currently holding a series of statewide hearings to gather public comments on the draft of the Healthy PA plan. This is part of the process to obtain approval from the federal government, a release from DiGirolamo says.

The Bensalem based State Rep “urged”  DPW Secretary Bev Mackereth and the administration to begin the process of accepting citizens into an expanded system immediately.

Davis has other ideas.

“I would go further and urge the Corbett administration to drop immediately its “Healthy Pennsylvania” alternative, which fails to provide adequate coverage, is too expensive and inefficient, and is mean-spirited to boot,” Davis said.

Calling it a “sham” of a proposal, Davis said the Governor continues to “dither with unacceptable and counterproductive alternative (s)” while tens of thousands of Pennsylvanian’s remain uninsured risking economic disaster.”

According to Davis, under the administrations Healthy PA plan  would require people with incomes greater than 50 percent of the federal poverty level — that’s $11,775 for a family of four — to pay premiums. Family incomes have shriveled in recent years, and it’s ridiculous to think that the budgets of uninsured families have the money to cover these costs, and all for substandard benefits

DiGirolamo thinks action needs to be taken sooner rather than later.

“While the state negotiates with the federal government on the proposed Medicaid changes, we can still begin to immediately help our citizens. That way, when this change is accepted, it will be simple to just transfer the new enrollees into the program,” DiGirolamo said. “In the meantime, I still have very serious concerns regarding many of the provisions of the Healthy PA plan, most notably requirements for work searches, premium costs, new screening instruments, retroactivity and other barriers for people to get the coverage they need,” DiGirolamo said in a release last week.

Davis further highlighted issues she has with the Governor’s plan calling them a form of “punishment.”

According to Davis if a family were to miss three consecutive insurance premium payments they would lose their health coverage but also be forced to wait three months to reapply for the health insurance program, saying that’s  reprehensible.

“The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is far from perfect.Davis said, however, “…I think we all have to take an objective look at the governor’s plan to use federal Medicaid dollars to fund private insurance coverage. This strategy could be much more expensive than the existing Medicaid program. Under Medicaid expansion, the federal government would pay 100 percent of the expansion through 2016, with no less than 90 percent funding after 2017.”

Davis  said she’s not holding her breath  though waiting for the administration  to join the effort to find reasonable, workable and affordable solutions for Pennsylvanian’s saying the best way to insure every Pennsylvanian is through Medicaid expansion as outlined in the ACA.

The Department of Public Welfare is currently holding a series of statewide hearings to gather public comments on the draft of the Healthy PA plan. This is part of the process to obtain approval from the federal government.