“I want to thank Gov. Ed Rendell for playing hardball with the Legislature to get something done on health care,” says Pat Downing, a member of the board of the Pennsylvania Direct Care Workers Association, in a letter to the editor of today’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Downing writes about the difficulty of continuing to keep doing direct-care work because of the high cost of health care, adding that she must go without the expensive medical tests her doctor recommends.
“This problem — caregivers without adequate health coverage — cannot be ignored,” she writes. “Too many elders and disabled depend on us to be there for them, and without affordable health care we can’t come to work.”
“I hope that our legislators do the right thing by ensuring that direct health-care workers have the same access to health-care coverage as the rest of us,” says Deb Shtulman, executive director of Valley Care Association in Sewickley, in a letter to the editor in today’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Shtulman voiced her support for Governor Rendell’s Cover All Pennsylvanians proposal and explained the need for better coverage for direct-care workers. She notes that many direct -care jobs are part-time, forcing workers to hold more than one at a time – none of which provide health insurance. “How can we expect to attract individuals to the direct-care worker jobs when they are earning as little as $10 per hour without benefits?” she asks. “How does such a person afford to pay for health-care coverage?”
Governor Ed Rendell is proposing a new way to pay for his Cover All Pennsylvanians plan, replacing a proposed tax on employers who do not provide health insurance.
According to an article in today’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the governor is now “looking to tap a surplus in a state fund that helps doctors pay their medical malpractice insurance costs. In addition, as before, the governor is calling for an increase in the tax on cigarettes and for a new tax on cigars and smokeless tobacco.”
The article praises the suggested funding sources, which include a 10-cent increase in the cigarette tax and a tax of 36 cents per unit on cigars, snuff, chew and any other tobacco that’s not a cigarette. “Ask people what they worry about, as countless polls have done, and their answer very often is health care,” it says. “A New York Times/CBS News poll last year found the majority of Americans said the federal government should guarantee health insurance to every citizen and they said they were willing to pay higher taxes to see that happen. But no national solution has been enacted.
“Pennsylvania now has an opportunity to help its uninsured citizens who have no alternative and to lead the nation by example.”
An article in today’s Warren Times Observer described a Warren County coalition for health care reform, one of several being formed statewide to create the Pennsylvania Health Access Network. The network is advocating legislative reform to provide quality, affordable health care to everyone in the Commonwealth.
Anna Vitriol, an intern with the PHI Health Care for Health Care Workers campaign, offered “information, guidance and support” at the group’s second meeting last week, noted the article, titled “Health Insurance Needs Draw Attention.” The article quoted Jessica Seabury, executive director for Consumer Health Coalition and the co-facilitator with Vitriol, on the importance of grassroots advocacy. “It’s the advocates on the ground in Warren… and the people that will make a difference,” she said.
The departure of Lisa Pohlmann from the Maine Center for Economic Policy has left the Maine HCHCW campaign with a new leader. Kurt Wise, who recently joined MECEP as its fiscal policy analyst, is the new facilitator of the Maine Direct Care Worker Coalition and co-leader – along with Barbara Asnes of Maine PASA – of the Maine HCHCW campaign.
“The HCHCW campaign is grateful to Lisa for her passion, policy acumen, and effective leadership,” said Allison Lee, national campaign manager for HCHCW. Pohlmann was instrumental in raising the awareness of the direct-care workforce among legislators and administrators, helping to move the state toward implementing policies to improve the quality of direct-care jobs. She left MECEP on January 14, after 13 years of service, to become deputy director of the Natural Resource Council of Maine.
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