Pennsylvania Access to Basic Care
Low Cost Health Insurance for all Adults

• Under this ambitious proposal uninsured adults making less than $31,200 ($64,000 for a family of 4) would pay between $0and $50 per month for full health insurance.
• The plan would include prescriptions and behavioral healthcare.
• Families over 200% of poverty could pay the full cost or $311 per adult, a good option in the case of serious medical need.
• Small employers will be offered subsidized insurance (at $130/ month per employee) for their workers, who would also pay between $10 and $70 for their insurance.

A coalition of Democrats and Republicans who really support small businesses is forming to make certain that you can get health insurance at every phase of your life. They should soon send a bill to the Senate that will make our health insurance market make sense.

Can you think of an industry that makes its money by avoiding customers? Doesn't that seem like a really weird concept? Well, there is one: the health insurance industry. Private insurers, like Aetna, carefully screen their customers to keep the ones most likely to have health problems out, a.k.a., "cherry picking." They look for small companies filled with healthy, young workers and offer them great plans. Then, they just rake in premiums, because even at reasonable rates they are making money because the young turks don't get sick.

They can do this because Pennsylvania permits insurers to set rates based for an employer based on the health status of its employees. So, Blue Cross & Blue Shield have to insure everyone. All the middle-aged and older workers end up with the Blues, while Aetna and others steal the healthier workers. By "steal," I mean they rob these larger pools of the healthy workers who bring costs down. That's the same trade-off we've always had with insurance. I pay in now while I'm healthy so that, in exchange, I won't have to pay in so much when I'm older.

That's not how it works anymore. Click "Read More" to find out what legislators are trying to do about it.