From the PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE:
What you don’t know can hurt you. Just ask the 41,000 working Pennsylvanians who lost their adultBasic health insurance coverage last week.
Part of the blame falls on the state’s Blue Cross-Blue Shield insurance providers, who refused to extend a voluntary, six-year agreement that funded the program for low-income adults. But equally complicit was a largely unknown decision, made by former Gov. Ed Rendell and the state Legislature, to shift tobacco settlement funds away from their intended purpose.
State Attorney General Jack Wagner released the results of a special audit last week that showed $1.34 billion in tobacco settlement funds were diverted from the program for the working poor and other health-related projects. Doing so violated the Tobacco Settlement Act, which directed that most of the annual sum would be spent on health initiatives in this way: 8 percent to an endowment account for future health care uses; 30 percent for adultBasic and Medicaid for workers with disabilities; 12 percent for tobacco prevention and cessation programs; 10 percent to reimburse hospitals for charity care; 8 percent to expand the prescription drug program for senior citizens; and 1 percent for cancer research…
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