Senate fails to act on health care

In the last scheduled session day of the 2008-09 Pennsylvania Senate, Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi withdrew health-related bills from the calendar, thereby denying Democratic members the opportunity to offer Pennsyvlania Access to Basic Care (PA ABC) as an amendment to a related bill.

Pileggi's action ensured that PA ABC, the House-passed plan to modernize the state's adultBasic program and expand enrollment by at least 200,000 uninsured individuals, would die in the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee.

According to an October 8th press release from PHAN, Senate leaders failed to take up PA ABC because key interest groups - notably the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania (HAP) and the Pennsylvania Medical Society (PMS) - failed to throw their weight behind the funding reallocation that PA ABC required.

According to the release, PA ABC "would have created a way for uninsured individuals to leave a pattern of delayed treatment and crisis-driven care and begin a pattern of primary care and prevention.  Our entire health care system would have become a bit more efficient as a result."

The full PHAN media release is attached.