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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2013 - 2014
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | December 14, 2012 11:54 AM |
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| From: | Representative Dan Frankel |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Medicaid Expansion |
| In the near future, I plan to introduce legislation to ensure that Pennsylvania takes advantage of the opportunity to enroll hundreds of thousands of its citizens in Medicaid, under the new Medicaid Expansion program. Currently, Pennsylvania’s Medicaid program is limited to low-income disabled adults and low income children and their parents. In light of Governor Corbett’s refusal to establish a state-run health insurance exchange, I believe it is imperative that we still move forward with the more important component of the Affordable Care Act – expanding Medicaid to cover childless adults and married couples with incomes below 133 percent of the federal poverty level. To put this in context, a single childless adult earning less than fifteen thousand dollars a year ($14,856) would be able to access primary, preventive and on-going medical care under the new Medicaid rules. Currently those adults without health insurance rely on emergency rooms as their source for medical care – at great expense to Pennsylvania. For the first three years, Pennsylvania would be able to ensure health care access for hundreds of thousands of adults at no additional cost to the Commonwealth’s state budget. In the following years, Pennsylvania will continue to have the overwhelming majority of the cost of coverage for these Medicaid recipients subsidized by federal funds – with 9 dollars coming to Pennsylvania for every 1 dollar we spend starting in 2020. If we choose not to expand our Medicaid eligibility, then Pennsylvania taxpayers federal tax dollars will still be subsidizing the medical coverage for residents of states that do choose to expand their eligibility. Additionally, if Pennsylvania chooses not to accept the federal funds and allow greater access to Medicaid, we may see unanticipated negative impacts on our community hospitals. Under changes in federal law, hospitals will be losing funds they currently receive for providing emergency care to the indigent and uninsured. However, without Medicaid coverage for many uninsured, hospitals may continue to see a large volume of uninsured patients in the emergency room, but would receive less reimbursement for the care they provide them. It’s critical for the benefit of our uninsured Pennsylvanians and our healthcare provider system that we expand Medicaid eligibility. We cannot continue to expect our hospitals to provide emergency care to the uninsured without reimbursement. Federal level payments for healthcare reflect the belief that our whole community will be healthier when uninsured adults have access to total health care through insurance, rather than solely to crisis care provided by emergency rooms. |
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| View Attachment | ||
Introduced as HB897