45 million Americans and counting

A hospital in my neck of the woods is observing "Cover the Uninsured Week." It’s not exactly a reason to celebrate, but it is important to bring attention to the plight of millions of Americans who do not have health insurance.

"Cover the Uninsured Week" is supposed to be part of a national campaign by hospitals and an organization known as Families USA to put a face on the tens of millions of Americans who do not have basic health coverage.

More than 45 million Americans — equal to the combined population of 24 states — do not have health care coverage, and 8 million are children, according Families USA, which bills itself as "the voice for health care consumers." Eight of 10 of the uninsured are in working families, who either do not make enough money to afford insurance or whose company does not provide it.

"While offering the best medical care in the world, the U.S. healthcare system, specifically the payment system, is broken," said John R. Morahan, president and chief executive officer of St. Joseph Medical Center in Reading, Pa. "Until we as a society and until the state and federal legislative bodies call for and act on change in this system, the crisis in healthcare will continue."

And speaking of ways to fix the health care crisis in Pennsylvania, bills were recently introduced in the state Legislature to help small businesses struggling with the high cost of providing health insurance coverage for their workers.

Senate Bill 671, introduced by state Sen. Rob Wonderling, and House Bill 1240, introduced by state Rep. Curt Schroder, would go a long way to helping some of the more than 375,000 working Pennsylvanians who do not have health insurance.

The bills are before the respective insurance committees in each chamber and have received bipartisan support by many senators and representatives. But similar bills languished in committee during the 2003-04 legislative session and were never released for a vote.

The only opposition to the bills is coming from the insurance lobby, which is looking at its bottom line. The question now is will our elected representatives help hard-working Pennsylvanians obtain health coverage or will they bow to the pressures of the insurance lobby?

These two bills need to be brought out of committee for a vote in each chamber and signed by the governor. Pennsylvania is one of only two states (Hawaii is the other) that do not regulate "for-profit" insurance companies.

The bills would bring "for-profit" insurance companies under the same regulations as "non-profit" agencies such as Blue Cross and Blue Shield and HMOs. It would level the playing field and provide access to health insurance for thousands. Right now, "for-profit" insurance companies and pick and choose which workers to cover. They can deny coverage to workers with pre-existing conditions or drop them for no reason. They can also charge whatever they want for premiums and raise those premiums 10 or 20 times the rate of inflation if they so choose.

That has forced small employers — the backbone of Pennsylvania’s economy — to pass on costs to their workers and their families or drop health coverage entirely for employees.

The health crisis in this country is enormous. It's easy to throw your hands up and give up because it's such a hurdle to climb. Congress has done that repeatedly.

But when there's an opportunity to help people, even a little bit, we have to take it. That's why the Pennsylvania bills need to be approved during the current session. We're talking about commonsense solutions to at least one part of the overall health crisis.

E-mail Tony Phyrillas at tphyrillas@pottsmerc.com