U.S. health agency says reform bill will help Pennsylvanians

The health care reform bill being debated by the U.S. Senate would significantly benefit Pennsylvania's senior citizens, its uninsured residents and small businesses, a report released Monday by the Obama administration contends.

The administration released a state-by-state analysis of the bill's potential impact, to coincide with the beginning of the Senate's debate on the bill, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said during a conference call with regional reporters across the nation.

"Ten more years of doing nothing paints a pretty bleak picture," Sebelius said.

State Republican Party chairman Robert Gleason fired back by labeling the bill as "one of the worst pieces of legislation in American history."

The Senate voted 60 to 39 with one member absent to allow the bill to reach the Senate floor for debate. Pennsylvania's senators, Arlen Specter and Bob Casey, voted in favor of debate. The Senate has recessed for Thanksgiving and is scheduled to resume debate Monday.

Sebelius sought to portray the bill as essential to preventing employer-based health insurance costs from almost tripling by 2019 from about $10,000 to almost $30,000 on average. With reform, costs will drop by $3,000, according to the administration.

"We know that by 2019, keeping on the course we're on, we'll have a 10 percent increase in every state in the country in the number of uninsured Americans," Sebelius said. "In over half the states, it goes up more than 30 percent."

Without reform, the number of uninsured Pennsylvanians will rise by 15.7 percent, according to an earlier administration report.

The new report says Pennsylvanians will benefit because:

- As many as 1.3 million uninsured residents and another 683,000 with individually bought insurance will be able to get coverage through the bill's proposed health insurance exchange.

- 904,000 residents could qualify for tax credits to help buy insurance.

- 2.2 million senior citizens would receive colonoscopies and other preventive care treatment free. Medicare recipients pay $169 for a colonoscopy, according to the report.

- 393,000 senior citizens would have the costs of brand-name drugs that fall into the so-called "doughnut hole" in Medicare coverage cut in half.

- 151,000 small businesses could tap a tax credit to make premiums more affordable for employees.

- Insurance companies could no longer bar people with pre-existing medical conditions from coverage or place "lifetime limits" on coverage.

"Reform will establish a high-risk pool to enable people who cannot get insurance today to find an affordable plan," the report says.

Gleason said Casey and Specter had voted to make "government-run health care one step closer to reality" and chosen Obama's "whims" over the needs of their constituents.

He said Democrats' reform bills would cut Medicare, raise taxes and "insert bureaucrats between patients and their doctors." He also said it would raise the cost of health care coverage.

The Senate bill is paid for through a combination of eliminating Medicare Advantage plans, a higher Medicare payroll tax on people who earn more than $200,000 a year, a new surtax on people who earn more than $500,000, a new tax on elective cosmetic surgery and a tax on high-cost insurance policies.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the Senate bill would cut the federal budget deficit by $127 billion through 2019.

Casey said reform will mean coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, insurance for Pennsylvanians who lack coverage and boosts for children's health insurance, preventive care and small businesses.

In a statement Saturday, Specter defended his vote by saying "the problems of so many millions of Americans uninsured and the problems of the rising health care costs make it imperative that action be taken."

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