Keep ’em covered: Bolstering adultBasic must be a priority in 2011

PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE:  There are 464,000 Pennsylvanians on the waiting list for adultBasic low-cost health insurance, so the 43,000 people enrolled have been the lucky ones. Their luck will run out in February unless there’s some quick action to bolster funding for the popular program.

Most of adultBasic’s funding comes from voluntary contributions by the state’s four Blue Cross/Blue Shield companies, including Highmark in Western Pennsylvania. Former Gov. Tom Ridge started adultBasic in 2002 and, three years later, Gov. Ed Rendell won the agreement with the Blues, at a time when the nonprofit insurers were being criticized for their large surpluses…

However, the Blues and the state Insurance Department, which is engaged in a wide-ranging investigation of the Blues for what it calls “unfair trade practices,” haven’t negotiated a new deal. As a stopgap, state lawmakers earlier this year forged a six-month extension in which the Blues agreed to pay $51 million for the first six months of 2011, which was intended to get the program through the 2010–11 fiscal year…  (more)

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  1. I would bet my car on the fact that most folks who do not have health insurance policies also do not possess a mortgage yet Obama says that every thirty seconds in America someone files bankruptcy mainly because they usually do not have health care. “They’re losing their homes to foreclosure since they can’t afford health and fitness treatment,” he says.

    If anything, a universal overall health treatment program will result in far a lot more foreclosures mainly because someone has to spend for it and guess who that someone is – us. Obama also has said that medicaid is in shambles and is a drain on taxpayers – doesn’t the government run medicaid? .
    ..and now they need to run a universal medical care system? Absolutely you will find further than a few democrats who are beginning to wonder if their boy wonder really can’t deliver the results wonders after all.

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