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!

Who doesn't love Ed Rendell? I used to cook him bacon cheeseburgers at the Lombard Swim Club where I worked in high school, and as I told Jennifer at the fundraiser last night, I don't know a native Philadelphian who doesn't have some weird, personal memory of him from the Mayoral years (again, mostly involving food).

Which is why his words, in Philadelphia, count.

So listen up ward leaders in the 179th state leg district--Rendell thinks you made a mistake. In fact his exact words from last night's fundraiser for Tony Payton Jr. were:

If we let them beat back Tony, it's a huge blow to independent politics in the Democratic party and the city of Philadelphia...and to young people.

He said a lot more, but I only got so much. Click here to see a terrible cell phone vid I took (the sound is the part that counts).

For those of you who don't know, Rep. Tony Payton Jr. is the youngest member of the PA House. He was first elected in 2006, and has since proved a valuable member of the unnamed, but growing, progressive caucus of the Democratic party in Harrisburg.

Tony ran without the blessing of the party in 2006, and beat a well-organized write-in candidate. Now, purely out of spite, City Commissioner Marge Tartaglione and former City Council-person Dannny Savage have prevented Tony from getting the Democratic party endorsement again.

Again according to Rendell:

Tony is a tremendous breath of fresh air in Harrisburg...if he'd gotten the endorsement, it would have been an easy reelection, but now it will be a tough battle and he needs every dime...which is why I gave him $5,000.

Hear that ward leaders? Hear that Congressman Brady?

Ed Rendell thinks you made a mistake, and not matter what your differences with the Guv may be, he is a Democratic governor in his last two years of power. This is the time big stuff is gonna be able to happen, and if the Guv wants Tony, you'd better deliver him.

I don't know Democratic City Committee rules real well, but maybe you could undo last Saturday's endorsement?

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!