For Immediate Release
3/3/09

Senate Majority Leader Pileggi, Senator Eichelberger Visit Altoona Medical Center
 to Discuss Plan to Boost Community Health Care

HealthNET PA improves health care access and expands Pennsylvania's health care safety net.

Altoona – State Sen. John Eichelberger (R-30) was joined by Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R-9) today at an Altoona medical center as part of their effort to improve health care access and expand Pennsylvania's health care safety net through the HealthNET PA legislative package. 

The senators visited the Partnering for Health Services facility to discuss the 15-bill HealthNET PA package, which includes legislation that would develop or expand health care clinics across Pennsylvania to provide "medical homes" for 175,000 working-poor clients and ease pressure on hospital emergency rooms. 

"The approach to health care reform has been to constantly attempt to reinvent the wheel, while getting nowhere. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of health clinics across the commonwealth, with dedicated professionals already providing access to direct care. The model is in place to dramatically expand health care access in Pennsylvania, let's take advantage of it," said Senator Eichelberger. "With HealthNET PA, 175,000 additional Pennsylvanians will have access to high-quality care, funded through existing resources. This is a chance to actually expand access to care, instead of just talking about it." 

The HealthNET PA plan would expand access to health care and medicine to more than 500,000 uninsured and low-income working Pennsylvanians. It would utilize information technology to control costs and reduce health care-associated infections, and provide expanded insurance options for employers and families, and will incorporate the concepts of disease prevention and wellness.   

"In Altoona and in communities across Pennsylvania, there is a need to expand access to health care.  Senator Eichelberger and I are here today because we believe – as do medical professionals at health care centers across the commonwealth -- that the most effective and affordable way to provide direct health care to people who otherwise might not have access is HealthNET PA," said Senator Pileggi. "This plan can be implemented quickly, and at less cost than other proposals. By increasing support for community health centers such as Partnering for Health Services, more families will receive health care directly, efficiently, and in community-based settings." 

Features of the 15-bill HealthNET PA package include the following:

• Improving Access to Health Care and Medicines
  • Establishing the Community-Based Healthcare Program for the expansion and site development of health care clinics across Pennsylvania to provide "medical homes" for 175,000 working poor clients and ease pressure on hospital emergency rooms.
  • Implementing a physician/health care facility volunteer program through which an additional 159,000 uninsured patients would be assigned to a primary or specialty care physician, with access to free specialty care, labs and inpatient hospital care.
  • Creating a registry of free prescription drugs and allowing retail establishment pharmacies to sell prescription drugs at a minimal cost, such as $4.
    
    
• Making Health Care More Affordable
  • Helping hospitals and doctors' offices convert to Electronic Medical Records, boosting evidence-based diagnosis and treatment protocols, and encouraging Telemedicine expansion.
  • Permitting health insurers to withhold payment to providers in the event of a medical error, and allowing employers to establish "Healthy Living Committees" qualifying for insurance discounts.
  • Providing funding of a critical cost-saver – the reduction of health care-associated infections.
    
    
• Expanding Coverage
  • Providing "Mini-Cobra" coverage for small business employers, creating a high-risk pool for individuals who cannot access other coverage, and extending the option of dependent coverage to age 30. (Nearly half of uninsured Pennsylvanians are age 18-34.)
  • Providing $5 million in state tax credits for the use of Health Savings Accounts.
  • Permitting a group of ten or more employers who belong to a nonprofit business coalition to pool their health-related insurance liabilities in order to self-insure. 

HealthNET PA would provide health care directly to the people who are in the greatest need, using existing sources of funds. 

Approximately $225 million is annually deposited into the Health Care Provider Retention Account from the current cigarette tax and the CAT Fund surcharge. An estimated $125 million a year is needed to fully fund the current MCARE abatement, which makes the remaining $100 million available for HealthNET PA.

"Most of the health insurance bestowed upon the working poor will cover only catastrophic events rather than routine preventive care visits. It is much more cost effective to delay the inevitable complications of such diseases such as hypertension and diabetes with routine office visits instead of lengthy and costly hospital stays that drain the entire health care system," said Dr. Zane Gates, Medical Director of Partnering for Health Services. "In my opinion, there is a system already in place that provides quality preventive medicine at a fraction of the cost: free clinics."

For more information, including statistics, charts and useful links, please visit the HealthNET PA homepage at www.pasenategop.com/healthnet.htm.

Senators and health care professionals will be discussing HealthNET PA at additional news conferences across Pennsylvania in the coming weeks.     

Contact:

Erik Arneson (Sen. Pileggi)
(717) 787-4712
Jason High (Sen. Eichelberger)
(717) 787-5490
 

More Information:
Healthcare
 

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