Senate Bill 5: Funding for community health clinics

Expanding Health Access at the Community Level

Inadequate Access to Primary Health Care:

• Currently, nearly 1 million working-age adults in Pennsylvania have no health insurance. Over a 2-year period of time (07-08), nearly 20 percent of working-age adults experienced at least 6 months when they had no coverage. Lack of coverage discourages individuals from seeking medical care; it also prompts some medical providers to deny services because of concern they will not be paid.
• Another 1.3 million Pennsylvania adults are under-insured, meaning that apart from the cost of insurance premiums, they spend more than 10 percent of their income on medical costs through deductibles, co-pays and fees for services that are excluded from coverage. When under-insured, people are similarly deterred from seeking the medical care they need.
• When people avoid prompt medical care, they are at risk of becoming sicker, suffering more than necessary, and ending up in emergency rooms where care is more expensive.
• Large unpaid medical bills are often either discharged in bankruptcy court or paid by taxpayers.

The Importance of Community Health Clinics:

• Community health clinics provide primary health care to all patients without regard to their ability to pay. This doesn’t mean the medical services are free; rather, these clinics use a sliding fee scale. If the patient has health insurance, a community health clinic will collect payment from the insurer. But about 40 percent of clinic patients have no coverage of any kind.
• Because community health clinics do not turn people away, these clinics are the leading providers of primary health care in many lower-income communities.
• Federally Qualified Health Clinics and related facilities operate at 160 locations within Pennsylvania and serve 500,000 people annually. In addition, some hospitals – especially in large urban areas – operate clinics that function along similar lines. And some communities have organized free or partial-pay clinics that operate through the donated services of health professionals.
• Without these clinics, many more people would go without early detection and care. Many others who have a chronic disease such as diabetes or hypertension would slide into crisis.

The Solution:

• Senate Bill 5, authored by Senator Ted Erickson (R-Delaware County), would provide $35 million annually to the Department of Health for grants to community-based health care clinics. One-half of the money would be used to expand existing clinics or develop new ones. One-quarter of the money would be used to improve prenatal, obstetric, postpartum and newborn care.
• Another $10 million annually would be made available to the Department of Public Welfare for grants to hospital-based clinics only. The criteria described above also would apply to this money.
• Another $5 million annually would be made available as tax credits to businesses that donate funds, products or services to a community-based health care clinic.
• This all would be paid for by an excise tax on “other tobacco products” than cigarettes. Currently Pennsylvania is the only state that does not tax such items.
• The maximum grant under the Department of Health’s program would be $500,000; those grants would need to be partially (25%) matched by other funds or services.

To print a 1-page summary of SB 5, follow the link at the top of this page.