The economy is tumbling. The AP reported this morning that jobs have dropped for a year now.

The number of newly laid off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits soared last week.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that claims for unemployment benefits rose by 35,000 to 380,000. Private economists had expected claims would rise by a smaller 18,000.

The story goes on to suggest that we're due to lose another 70K across our economy.

Here in PA, we've got a chance to extend healthcare coverage to many of the people who will be laid off here, at affordable prices, and thereby ease the suffering of many workers out of work. It's money that's stopping it.

Smokers have been taxed here, among other things, to create a fund that cuts malpractice premiums (at the very least) in half across PA. We collected much too much tax money for that fund and now the state wants authorization to reallocate part of that money into paying for the uninsured.

With another dime per pack on cigarettes and reallocating this money that's just sitting, we could cover many of the uninsured here. In a few years, I believe, the program would reach all of them.

The man-on-the-street will have a lot less money in his pocket, soon, when he loses his job and when a general economic tightening reins in the hours, the bonuses, the overtime, the promotions, the raises and the tips or commissions of others. We can, at least, insure that he remains whole and healthy through this downturn.

The Senate R's are coming out with their own plan this week. It's not likely to cut a break to consumers. They are more than content to let their sick constituents get sicker and destroy the liquidity of working families who catch a bad break in order to stay tight with doctors and hospitals. We can't let them do it. SB 1137 is the right vehicle to maintain health through the coming recession and it should simply pass.

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.

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!

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.

Right now 1.2 million Pennsylvanians lack basic health care coverage. Those of us who are insured face rising premiums, shrinking coverage, and bureaucratic obstacles to treatment. Prescription medicines are too expensive and preventative health care has become a thing of past. Those families that are unfortunate enough to be struck with a serious illness or a health emergency often face financial ruin and bankruptcy.

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!

“Despite an upturn in the overall economy, the loss of health insurance coverage through employers has continued,” said Sharon Ward, Director of the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center (PBPC), a non-partisan policy research project that analyzes state tax and budget matters. “Health insurance, which for a long time came as a basic benefit to a decent, middle-class job, is quickly disappearing for many Pennsylvanians.” From a press release found here.

Ward bases her comments on a new study on employer based health coverage that's out from the Economic Policy Institute.

Republicans like to paint themselves as pro-business and pro-market, but if you look at a lot of the policies some of them espouse around healthcare, it's really just pro-certain-really-rich-people. This is an important difference. Why? Click "Read More" to find out.

Click to download the first episode of

The Legislator and the Agitator. Rep. Payton and I were talking recently about the lack of podcasts about Pennsylvania politics. We're both pretty involved in it in our own way, so we had the idea of starting our own podcast. The intent is to give the inside and the outside perspective of two people working on the same political side. This is our first episode. In the future, we'll go more into each other's background and also try to spend more time talking about how we do what we do.

This first podcast is pretty topical, though. Show notes below. It's a little under an hour, but divided into four main segments, of about 15 minutes each. In other words, we have your next four walks to/from work covered. Fire up that Ipod, Pennsylvania!

Hit "Click More" to see the Show Notes!

The Inquirer reported this week that health insurance costs about the same as an economy car to cover the family each year.

Some standout quotes from the piece by Jane Von Bergen:

Health insurance premiums for the average family topped $12,000 in 2006 - more than the cost of an economy car - according to an annual survey released yesterday.
...
"It's the growing anxiety on the part of the public which is moving health care up the political agenda," said Drew Altman, president and chief executive officer of the California-based foundation.
...
Annual premiums average $12,106 for families, with workers, on average, picking up $3,281 of the cost. Coverage for singles costs $4,479, with individuals paying $694.

Workers in companies with fewer than 200 employees pay a larger share of the premiums for family coverage than do their counterparts in larger companies.