Insur-Animals #1

This is kind of awesome. Pass Prescription for Pennsylvania (and Access to Basic Care). Health Insurance companies are evil.

Technorati Tags: cartoon, fun activism, health care, health insurance

From the Philadelphia Unemployment Project

An Open Letter

April 10, 2008

Dear Senator Clinton and Senator Obama:

Healthcare has been central to each of your campaigns. As you work here in advance of the April 22nd primary, we wanted to alert you that healthcare is the number one opportunity we have to improve the lives of working Pennsylvanians right now. We, the undersigned, believe your campaigns could advance the cause of Pennsylvania’s reforms, should you choose to make them an issue.

Early last year, Governor Rendell unveiled an ambitious package of reforms known as The Prescription for Pennsylvania (Rx4PA, www.rxforpa.com). Rx4PA would expand access to health insurance with a high quality healthcare plan. With revisions from the House Democrats, that plan is now known as “Access to Basic Care,” and it passed the House this month in Senate Bill 1137.

Rx4PA would also rein in the forces that have driven up the price of insurance in the small group market, reward employers already providing coverage and insure that no one with a pre-existing condition is denied coverage.These also passed the House of Representatives in House Bill 2098 and House Bill 2005.

If these reforms succeed in the Commonwealth, it will make the arguments for either of your national plans much stronger. Rx4PA’s success should also galvanize your allies in Washington while chastening your opponents.

Two editorials today in both of our city's main dailies highlight the hope for Final passage of much needed coverage for the Uninsured.

Editorial: Covering the Uninsured, The Inquirer

A SICK PLAN, The Daily News

Both papers say that the House should approve "Access to Basic Care" in S.B. 1137. That means they should permit the Dems to make their technical amendments (they dropped a couple brackets in there) and send it to the Senate.

That means you, Rep. Perzel, who stepped out before the final vote on the amendment that put "Access to Basic Care" in the bill. Rep. John Taylor, a Philadelphia Republican who usually supports the working poor on issues like this, was not around last week. Hopefully, today, he'll be back in the Capitol and will support the House Democrats new plan. Kenney and O'Brien are on the side of right and justice. Speaking of the Democrats, though: Democrats, none of you can call in sick this week. It would be more irony than I can really handle if people lost their chance to pay for doctor visits because one of you got the flu.

Up for first consideration in the House today, as well, is HB 2005, which reforms the market for insurance purchasers for small groups of people -- the small and medium sized business. This legislation would make it impossible to deny coverage to individuals because they have a health problem (the "pre-existing condition"). In other words, sick people will still be able to buy coverage. Insurers won't be able to jack up people’s rates based on their medical history, and the cost of covering someone will be based only on their age and the average cost of covering a person in that area or community, modified by the individual's age.

HB 2005 will also lower costs. When the uninsured get covered and when hospitals quit making so many mistakes, insurers won’t have to pay out as much money for medical bills anymore. Under HB 2005, the state can make sure that insurers can’t keep the difference. Instead, they’ll have to lower premiums, making insurance less expensive for individuals and easier for employers to provide.

[If anyone asks you, the Deluca Amendment is good and the Micozzie amendment masquerades as compromise while effectively gutting the bill - if in doubt, pass it it as it is.]

More details on the plan, after the jump. So Jump!

Here's the second in our series of SEIU Healthcare PA members talking about the need to ban mandatory overtime.

Mandatory overtime affects hospital workers, nursing home workers, and state and county employees.

If you love seniors, call your state senator and tell them to vote for a ban on forced overtime. If you live in the district of a member of the Republican leadership, call and tell them to schedule a vote on the bill (HB 834).

On Tuesday, January 29, health care workers from around the state will be converging on the state capitol in Harrisburg to urge the Senate to ban forced overtime.

Click here to hear one nurse's story about why she's making the trip.

This is the first in a series of video emails we're sending the PA General Assembly, to let them know why health care workers all over the state need an end to mandatory overtime.