On Monday we saw Governor Rendell stand with leaders in the Salvation Army and Democratic Legislators. While I'm always excited to find myself on the same side as the Democratic Appropriations Chairman, Sen. Vince Fumo, the real news Monday was that doctors are coming out in numbers saying that they support the Prescription for Pennsylvania. The Orthopedic Society came out and said that they could support using some of the tobacco tax money used to offset their medical malpractice liabilities for covering the uninsured. The Pennsylvania Osteopathic Medical Association took the same stance.

On Monday we saw Governor Rendell stand with leaders in the Salvation Army and Democratic Legislators. While I'm always excited to find myself on the same side as the Democratic Appropriations Chairman, Sen. Vince Fumo, the real news Monday was that doctors are coming out in numbers saying that they support the Prescription for Pennsylvania. The Orthopedic Society came out and said that they could support using some of the tobacco tax money used to offset their medical malpractice liabilities for covering the uninsured. The Pennsylvania Osteopathic Medical Association took the same stance.

The Pennsylvania AFL-CIO is pressing legislators to pass HB 2098, a bill submitted on December 6th and sitting before the House Insurance Committee (authored by its chair, Rep. DeLuca). We were all a little disappointed earlier this year when the legislative process failed to make good on Governor Rendell's plan to allow our insurers to quit paying for infections and mistakes made by Hospitals. Then, the next thing we knew, Medicare (by far the biggest spender in Healthcare) came along and said it wasn't going to pay for those mistakes or infections starting late in 2008, anyway. Which could have nearly the same effect, so HB 2098 seeks to give our Pennsylvania insurers that same right: to refuse to pay bills for procedures correcting conditions that hospitals should have prevented.

"But wait! I thought we already solved this problem?" you ask. Sure you do. We did something about it, but we sure didn't solve it. In fact, in one very important way, we took a step backward. A big step. Click Read More to see what I mean!