Health care has been the single most important domestic issue in America. Currently the U.S. Congress is debating a measure, suggested by President Barack Obama, which drastically overhauls and improves health care in America. It is imperative that Congress take action now on this pressing issue.

Health care is an economic and a personal issue. It’s an economic issue because health care inflation has strangled productivity and used key resources that could have been reinvested.

It is a personal issue because as economic instability continues, more Americans spend a greater portion of their family budgets on health care. As employers grapple with the high cost of health insurance and drop health care from employee benefit packages or, alternatively, as Americans lose jobs families will begin looking at alternatives to supplement gaps in their care. As a result, health care insurance will become increasingly important. Thus, passing substantive health care legislation that is affordable, equitable, and fiscally sound will be imperative.

Here in Pennsylvania, we have been in the forefront of the health care issue. I have worked diligently with the governor and the Secretaries of Health and Welfare on a number of health care related issues in an effort to ensure that all Pennsylvanians receive adequate health care.

Some of those issues include:

• Providing the uninsured with quality health care through the adultBasic program. Launched in 2002 to cover the basic healthcare needs of Pennsylvanians between 19 and 65 who have no health insurance, adultBasic covers over 90,000 Pennsylvanians.
• Pennsylvania has gone beyond the federal model of the CHIP Program by offering health insurance to all uninsured children with the “Cover All Kids” policy. This means that every uninsured child is eligible for health insurance under CHIP or Medicaid.
• The Pennsylvania Health care Cost Containment council has been instrumental in helping keep health care costs down in Pennsylvania by giving comparative information about the most efficient and effective health care providers to individual consumers and group purchasers of health services.

My own efforts to improve health care in Pennsylvania have been wide-ranging and far-reaching. I have diligently fought against the staggering number of uninsured Pennsylvanians by introducing and supporting legislative initiatives to add more people to Pennsylvania’s adultBasic Program.

In addition, I worked to see that the original CHIP bill passed the General Assembly and was signed into law in the early 1990’s and I continue to work to make sure that the program is funded at adequate levels.

My wife Sheryl and I have made it our life’s work to promote HIV-AIDS research, testing and outreach. There is still so much to be done to eradicate HIV-AIDS. I will also continue to fight for funding and be the lead advocate for programs and services that battle cancer.

More Security and Stability
If You Have Health Insurance, the Obama Plan:

• Ends discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions.
• Limits premium discrimination based on gender and age.
• Prevents insurance companies from dropping coverage when people are sick and need it most.
• Caps out-of-pocket expenses so people don’t go broke when they get sick.
• Eliminates extra charges for preventive care like mammograms, flu shots and diabetes tests to improve health and save money.
• Protects Medicare for seniors.
• Eliminates the “donut-hole” gap in coverage for prescription drugs.

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Quality, Affordable Choices
If You Don’t Have Insurance, the Obama Plan:

• Creates a new insurance marketplace — the Exchange — that allows people without insurance and small businesses to compare plans and buy insurance at competitive prices.
• Provides new tax credits to help people buy insurance.
• Provides small businesses tax credits and affordable options for covering employees.
• Offers a public health insurance option to provide the uninsured and those who can’t find affordable coverage with a real choice.
• Immediately offers new, low-cost coverage through a national “high risk” pool to protect people with preexisting conditions from financial ruin until the new Exchange is created.

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Reins in the Cost of Health Care
For All Americans, the Obama Plan:

• Won’t add a dime to the deficit and is paid for upfront.
• Requires additional cuts if savings are not realized.
• Implements a number of delivery system reforms that begin to rein in health care costs and align incentives for hospitals, physicians, and others to improve quality.
• Creates an independent commission of doctors and medical experts to identify waste, fraud and abuse in the health care system.
• Orders immediate medical malpractice reform projects that could help doctors focus on putting their patients first, not on practicing defensive medicine.
• Requires large employers to cover their employees and individuals who can afford it to buy insurance so everyone shares in the responsibility of reform.

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