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.

In Pennsylvania, when you add it all up, we pay about $6,000 per person per year for health care. But we don’t receive anything like $6,000 worth of actual health care. That is because our health care dollars are filtered through middlemen called insurance companies. They skim off money to pay bloated executive salaries, hire adjusters to find reasons to reject treatment claims, and spend millions marketing their services and lobbying our elected officials. Salaries for CEOs of for-profit health insurance companies are among the highest in corporate America. In 2005, the CEO of UnitedHealth Group took home $124.8 million in pay and stock options, and Aetna, another private insurance company with a large presence in Pennsylvania, paid its CEO $22.2 million in 2006.

We can reclaim all that wasted money by adopting a publicly-financed system that pays doctors and health care providers directly for the health care we all need. The Family and Business Healthcare Security Act (SB 300) can accomplish that. It would put Pennsylvania in the forefront of health care reform nationally by creating a publicly financed health insurance plan that would cover all Pennsylvanians.

The health care system itself would remain private. For-profit and non-profit hospitals would continue to compete to attract patients, as would doctors and other health care providers. But, you would know that whatever treatment or health services you and your doctor agreed on would be covered in full, without paper work and without having to choose a “plan.”

Instead of having to choose between “plans” that are difficult or impossible to understand, we would each choose our own doctor and hospital. Those Pennsylvanians whose jobs don’t offer health coverage or who can’t afford health insurance would no longer have to impoverish themselves to qualify for public assistance.

The benefits for Pennsylvania businesses would be tremendous. Businesses operating here, and those that relocate here, would no longer be saddled with crippling health care costs. Because job mobility would no longer be limited by an employee’s need to stay with a particular insurance plan, business owners will be able to hire the best person for the job. With the burden of paying for and administering health care coverage lifted, Pennsylvania’s business climate will become one of the best in the nation. Employment will rise, and tax revenues will rise with it. Unemployment will fall, and welfare and social service costs will fall with it.

One of my first acts as State Senator will be to co-sponsor SB 300, the Family and Business Healthcare Security Act, and then work to get it to the Governor’s desk for his signature.

Anne Dicker
Democrat for State Senate, First District
www.AnneDicker.com