HUGHES AMENDMENT SPARKS DEBATE OVER ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE


Hughes

            HARRISBURG, December 11 – State Sen. Vincent J. Hughes (D-7th) touched off an intense health care debate on the Senate floor today by offering an amendment intended to give people without health insurance the same priority as doctors when funding efforts to improve Pennsylvania’s health-care system.

Hughes offered the amendment in support of Gov. Ed Rendell’s “Cover All Pennsylvanians” initiative and to spark a wider debate about improving access to health care in Pennsylvania.

“We need to jump start the debate on health care and look hard at proposals—like Governor Rendell’s Cover All Pennsylvanians—that address the needs of Pennsylvania’s uninsured,” Hughes said.  “I introduced the amendment to try and bring focus and give policymakers a time-certain when we would be forced to address health care insurance.”

            By the end of the year, the legislature must re-authorize the fund that pays a portion of doctors’ liability insurance, a fund that has paid out more than $1 billion over the last five years and has compiled a substantial reserve.

            Hughes’ amendment would have required the legislature to use half of the reserve to help uninsured Pennsylvanians obtain coverage before any more money would be paid to doctors.

            “For years we’ve been talking about the growing number of uninsured as a looming humanitarian, economic, and security catastrophe,” Hughes said. “My intention was to put our feet to the fire.  It would have forced all the stakeholders in this crisis to pay attention and to help find a solution.”

            Hughes’s amendment to House Bill 489 failed by a vote of 14-35, but not before touching off a spirited debate over the failures of the state and federal government to stem the growing cost of health insurance and the number of uninsured. 

Hughes explained that by allowing as many as 850,000 of its residents to go without coverage, health-care providers feel the extra expense in emergency rooms, while employers struggle to keep a healthy work force, and society risks a possible pandemic that isn’t discovered until it’s too late.

            “We are all in this together,” Hughes said. “Doctors, employers, Democrats, Republicans, rich, poor, young and old.  We have to work together to share the load.”

            “I understand that the legislature has to make sure that we keep good doctors in Pennsylvania,” Hughes said. “But for thousands of my constituents the problem is not finding a doctor. The problem is being able to afford to pay the doctor. My amendment would have helped doctors and patients.”