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PA Family and Business Health Care Security Act - HB1660/SB400

Wed, 07/01/2009 - 1:09pm — DCblogger

Battle for Health Care Is Not a Spectator Sport

Like a flower blooming in time lapse photography, Allen Minch’s sequenced photographs of the June 11 single-payer (PA Family and Business Health Care Security Act - HB1660/SB400) rally at the Capitol rotunda showed the blossom of a movement. After the initial trickle of supporters, carloads and busloads arrived filling the ground floor surrounding the steps, spilling up the steps and into the balcony. What the pictures don’t reveal is the loud clamor of citizens eager to raise their voices in support of an idea whose time has come. ...

... Chuck Pennacchio is Executive Director of HealthCare4AllPA.org, the event’s main sponsor. Taking it to the critics and naysayers who belittle the single-payer movement as a Quixotic tilting at windmills, Pennacchio pointed out, “They said we’d never be able to write our own legislation—we wrote our own legislation. They said we could never get a House or Senate member to introduce single-payer legislation—we’ve done it three times. They said we could never get Gov. Rendell to agree to sign the legislation upon reaching his desk —he’s committed to doing it (on You Tube) three times. They said we could never get a Republican to sign on as a co-sponsor of single-payer—we’ve done it twice. They said we could never get Republican support for an economic impact study—we have commitments from 36 in both chambers. They said we could never get Republicans to give a hearing on this legislation in addition to the Democrats—we’ve done it with House Republicans three times. And everyone, to a person, said we could never get state Senator Don White, who is the gatekeeper for health care in the state Senate, to give us a hearing—Don White is giving us a hearing before the Banking and Insurance Committee in the fall.

The most important thing is that Congress pass no act that prohibits the states from enacting their own plan.

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Is this for everyone?

By mass on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 8:48pm

I'm reading it's opening up state health plan for some low incomes, like in MA, but this says single payer?

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Medicare for All is Civil Rights

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yes

By hipparchia on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 9:22pm

from the healthcare4allpa site:

House bill HB1660 was introduced June 28. Senate bill SB400 was introduced in March. Both provide for comprehensive single payer health care coverage for all citizens of PA. HealthCare4AllPA and others are actively encouraging the process. We're working every day to move both bills towards ultimate passage.

SB400 and HB1660 are essentially resubmissions of last year's SB1085 and HB1722, which were introduced but never voted on in the 2005-2006 legislative session.

[...]

Provides comprehensive universal health coverage, single payer, no deductibles or co-pays, and no caps. Covers all cost of hospitalization, physicians, prescription drugs, dental, mental, optical, emergency transport, addiction, transplants, durable medical equipment, hospice, long term care, etc. There is no coverage for purely cosmetic procedures except where deformity is trauma related. Replaces private insurance, Medicaid, Adult Basic, PaCHIP, and all other government programs except Medicare and VA. The Plan plugs all holes in Medicare and VA coverage. Parties to collective bargaining agreements with benefits at least as generous as the Balanced Plan may opt out. Private insurers may sell insurance to cover anything not covered by the Plan.

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