medicaid expansion.jpg

(shutterstock.com)

By Erin Ninehouser

What do Ohio, New Jersey, West Virginia, Maryland and New York have in common?

Aside from a border with Pennsylvania, their political leaders all had the good sense to expand access to health care for their state's workers, and they did it without delay.

In Ohio, it was Republican Governor John Kasich who made the conservative economic case for health care expansion, telling his party that: "We should not shoot ourselves in the foot and send our tax dollars to another state to be spent."

In New Jersey, it was chair of the organization tasked with electing more Republican Governors, Chris Christie, who cleared the way for Medicaid Expansion, saying "It's simple. We are putting people first."

But here in Pennsylvania, despite bipartisan support in the legislature, workers remain shut out – paying in for a benefit that Governor Corbett has blocked them from receiving.

I've had a lot of conversations over the past year, talking to people about the Affordable Care Act, answering their questions, helping them navigate this new landscape and understand the language of insurance. The hardest thing to help them understand, though, is this: in Pennsylvania, the people who need help the most are the ones who can't get it.

Who are we talking about?

Well, take a moment and look around. We're talking about waitstaff and cooks and 40,000 others in the food service industry; receptionists, temp workers and 31,000 others working in administrative support roles; and 33,000 in the retail sector, to name a few.

If you've left your house today, chances are you've passed or been helped or greeted by one of the 285,000 Pennsylvanians who are working, uninsured, and would get coverage from Medicaid expansion.

But what about Obamacare, folks ask? I thought it was going to help people like me?

I hear those questions all too often, and the best answer I can give is to take folks back through the history; to explain that when the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, it also ruled that each state could choose whether or not to expand Medicaid. That the Court's ruling did not take away or reduce the billions of dollars in new federal funding set aside for Pennsylvania to expand coverage. That the current Congress could have acted to amend the law to make tax credits available to people earning below the poverty level, but didn't – after all, they were too busy working to repeal and undermine the law.

Every day since Jan. 1, Pennsylvania has blocked $4.8 million dollars in federal funding to expand coverage from coming into our state's economy. That's money that could be strengthening rural and community hospitals, creating jobs, and stimulating billions in new economic activity across the Commonwealth right now.

Instead of following this clear path to coverage, jobs and economic growth, Governor Corbett took a detour. The detour is "Healthy PA" and it's most hazardous to our most vulnerable residents – seniors, people with disabilities, and individuals with serious mental and physical health conditions.

While traditional Medicaid expansion would boost the financial stability of low-income workers and families by providing affordable health insurance right away, "Healthy PA" would push low-income Pennsylvanians further down in the hole by instituting new premiums and higher costs for people currently covered by Medicaid. It would force people with serious medical conditions to fight through new layers of red tape to get the care they need, and impose harsh lockout periods regardless of the circumstance, if someone in a period of economic hardship cannot afford his or her premiums.

"Healthy PA" is an unnecessary detour on the road to coverage, one that cuts benefits and puts up barriers to care. Pennsylvania voters, fifty-nine percent of whom support traditional Medicaid Expansion recognize that it takes Pennsylvania backward when we should be moving forward.

Governor Corbett's delay has kept the doctor away from too many workers already. It's time to say yes to Medicaid Expansion.

Erin Ninehouser is Education and Outreach Director for the Pennsylvania Health Access Network.