Republican Tom Corbett To End Adult Basic Insurance: 41,000 people out of insurance.

[blue neen]

http://www.pahouse.com/

Read the whole article and sign the petition, if you wish. What a hypocrite Corbett is.

[MrMickeysMom]

1. Done! Everyone should sign...

He makes fun of everyone who isn't employed, as if it's some game. Next, he'll be fracking everyone's back yard.

Facist.

[Divernan]

2. Program funded by Blue Cross out of their huge surplus-costs taxpayers nothing!

I just tried to sign the petition and when I hit Enter, got a "Sorry the page will not load" message. Have emailed their webmaster to correct this. If you try and can't get it to load, please try again later in the day.

What's is really insulting and infuriating about Corbett's action is that this does NOTHING, I repeat

N O T H I N G ! - NADA - ZILCH

to balance the state budget. The Blues have a surplus of $5.6 Billion. It would cost them $150 million to continue funding this program - as a "non-profit", this highly profitable corporation pays NO STATE TAXES!

(From the state Dems website):

"By the end of February, more than 40,000 working Pennsylvanians who now have access to health care through the adultBasic health insurance program will be without health-care coverage...unless Gov. Tom Corbett acts.

adultBasic provides bare-bones health insurance to uninsured working adults who do not qualify for Medicaid and aren’t old enough to qualify for Medicare. During the past six years, contributions from the state's tax-exempt Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurers, which have a combined surplus of $5.6 billion, helped fund this program. The agreement with the Blues expired Dec. 31, and the fund is expected to run out of money at the end of February.

If the Blues continued to fund the program and fulfill their charitable mission, it would cost $150 million, or 2.6 percent of their surplus. Gov. Corbett has said he will let the program expire rather than renegotiate.

The governor wants to move uninsured people to a more costly program they can't afford or to rely on the federal government to send Pennsylvania money it has reserved for other states. Neither is reasonable nor viable.

House Democrats are calling on Gov. Corbett to renegotiate with Pennsylvania's Blue Cross and Blue Shield providers and are asking the governor to sit down with lawmakers and discuss other viable funding options.

All Pennsylvanians should have access to affordable health care. Gov. Corbett should be helping to protect health insurance for working people – not helping to build surpluses for tax-exempt corporations.

Join the fight to save adultBasic! Send a message to Gov. Tom Corbett. Tell him to renegotiate with the Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurance providers. Tell him to put the health of Pennsylvanians ahead of insurance company profits!

SIGN THE PETITION TO SAVE adultBasic

[Divernan]

3. Earlier, Blue Cross had agreed to extend program 6 months & Corbett supported it.

I found this on a Post Gazette blog archive:


Morning headlines
Thursday, July 29, 2010 08:43 AM
Written by Daniel Malloy


Have a gander at two important stories in today's Post-Gazette. The first, from the sage Jim O'Toole, takes a look at Dan Onorato and Tom Corbett's different plans on Pennsylvania's adultBasic health insurance plan for low-income families.

At a news conference Wednesday at the Birmingham Free Clinic, Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato, the Democratic nominee, added his voice to calls for the state's tax-exempt Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurers to extend their support for the program.

"This is a big issue for the state," Mr. Onorato said before adding his name to a petition urging the insurance firms to prolong their commitment.

The plan, adultBasic, is dependent on a five-year agreement with the insurers that expires at the end of this year. Mr. Onorato called for a three-year extension until the plan can be supplanted by provisions of the federal health care legislation in 2014.

In testimony before the Legislature, the insurance companies have agreed to a six-month extension but are opposed to a more open-ended renewal. Attorney General Tom Corbett, the Republican candidate, supports the six-month extension but opposes the demands to extend it to three years, a spokesman said.

"To renew it until 2014 could be fiscally irresponsible, particularly since we don't know the full cost of what the national health care bill will be," said Kevin Harley, a spokesman for Mr. Corbett's campaign.
_________________________________________________________
end of blog entry

It seems to me that Corbett's spokesman confuses "national health care bill" with the unconscionable billions in profits the PA Blues have made off of state residents.

[old mark]

4. I know you blame Corbett for this, but it started when Rendell was governor...

in fact it started in 2009 when the money that was supposed to be set aside for this program was kept by the state government. I am one of the last members of adultBasic. My monthly cost for my insurance rose from $230 to $640 over the last year, and it was all under Mr. Rendell's administration. I really hate Corbett and hs is a disaster, but this was done by Rendell.

mark

[blue neen]

5. I am just reporting the news that was given to me.

I'm very sorry to hear that your insurance is being eliminated...it's an awful position to be in.

Rendell found a way to keep it afloat---Corbett will not do that.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

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[MH1]

7. Rendell was not exactly a liberal's dream

and he did a lot of stuff I have a problem with, and failed to do much more.

But as with Obama, a lot of that has to do with republican obstructionism. (a lot , not all)

I think exhibit #1 of how fucked we are as a state with republicans holding any power, is the failure to enact a severance tax on natural gas extraction. It's such a no-brainer when every other state has a tax, and it's a limited resource - when it's gone it's gone. Demand will never completely go away, so we could simply hold out until the price was better, rather than giving it away.

If we did common sense revenue generation like severance taxes, we might be in a little better position to fund programs like adultBasic. And the failure to enact a severance tax was definitely not Rendell's fault.

I don't know enough about the situation with the Blues. But as I understand there was an agreement with them that Corbett refuses to renegotiate.(why did it expire coincident with the end of Rendell's term though? that seems dumb).

[old mark]

9. The money to continue the AB insurance was already set aside, but was

never given to the insurance company. I called them many times over the last year, and was finally told this: The company would have gladly continued the program at the original cost per month, but they never got the money from PA to do so, even though the money had been authorised and approved. This was in 2009-2010, before Corbett was even running in the primary.

Rendell has used public service employees as scapegoats throughout his career. Recall when he laid off many Philly city employees and froze wages to "balance the budget". He did so to state workers as well, and gave us the worst contract negotiations we ever had since we unionized in 1973.
Rendell has no use for workers or unions other than as contributors to his campaigns, and he has showed this clearly over the years.

I am certainly no defending Corbett-he will be many times worse than Rendell- but give "credit" where it is due.

mark

[PA Democrat]

8. He is a bully.

Bullies go after the most vulnerable. God forbid he support an excise tax on natural gas drillers who are destroying our environment. It's easier to beat upon the poor, the disabled and the elderly.