OUR PRIORITIES 

Since 2007, PHAN has worked to ensure patients have access to high-quality, affordable, equitable healthcare. With the passage of the Affordable Care Act and the expansion of Medicaid in Pennsylvania, we’ve seen great improvements in access to care. But, for too many Pennsylvanians, high-quality healthcare is out-of-reach, either because they simply can’t afford it or because the healthcare they need isn’t available in their local area. When they do access care in an emergency or due to illness or injury, far too many end up in debt in order to pay for it.

PHAN’s 2024 policy agenda is below:

Reining in Prescription Drug Costs

Prescription drugs play an essential role in managing, preventing, and treating health conditions, but prescription drugs don’t work if people can’t afford them. With prices rising each year, more Pennsylvanians than ever before are cutting pills in half, skipping doses, or leaving prescriptions at the pharmacy. 

PHAN is working to establish a Prescription Drug Affordability Board that will investigate why selected medications are so expensive, establish negotiated limits that lower what Pennsylvanians pay at the pharmacy, and ensure a fair profit for pharmaceutical manufacturers that allows them to continue investing in new research and medications.

Lowering the Monthly Costs of Pennie Health Insurance

Over 430,000 Pennsylvanians purchase their health insurance through Pennie, Pennsylvania’s online health insurance marketplace. Yet for many, the monthly cost of health insurance is too steep. 

By advocating for Pennsylvania to lower the monthly cost of health insurance, PHAN is working to help Pennsylvanians get insured and stay insured, or to purchase better plans with lower deductibles and out-of-pocket costs that make it more affordable to see a doctor when they need to.

PHAN is also working at the federal level to make sure that subsidies that make marketplace plans more affordable established through the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 are extended beyond 2025.

Protecting Local Access to High-Quality Hospital Care

The pace of hospital acquisitions and closures is accelerating dramatically in Pennsylvania. When hospitals are acquired, the cost of healthcare services increases dramatically without any change in the quality of care. Local hospitals that are purchased by bigger hospitals or for-profit companies are often closed altogether or forced to shutter life-saving services, like maternity care or the emergency room. 

PHAN is working to establish a new public process that takes the needs of local communities into account, which will protect patients’ access to local, high-quality hospital care and keep costs lower. Pennsylvania should also make the cost of hospital care more competitive by banning unfair deals between insurers and hospitals that drive up costs for patients and employers.

Preventing Medical Debt

Nearly 1 in 4 Pennsylvanians are in medical debt, and many more are using up their savings, sacrificing rent or utilities, or racking up credit card debt or loans to pay their medical bills, and the programs to prevent medical debt already exist. Most Pennsylvania hospitals are required by law to create and publicize financial assistance programs that provide free or discounted care to eligible patients, but many patients don’t know they exist or struggle to access them.

Pennsylvania can prevent medical debt before a patient ever receives a medical bill by raising awareness about financial assistance programs, making requirements clearer, and creating a streamlined application, along with screening more people in the hospital to see if they qualify for health insurance programs. 

Protecting and Improving Medicaid

Medicaid works. But, PHAN is working to make it better. We’re pushing for improvements to Medicaid that will address the root causes of poor health, make sure that people who qualify for Medicaid get enrolled, and make sure that people can get high-quality local care in their local communities. PHAN also serves as a watchdog to defend against any proposal that would effectively cut Medicaid or programs that keep Pennsylvanians healthy like SNAP (also known as “Food Stamps”) or make it harder for Pennsylvanians to access the care they need.