Pennsylvania Prescription

I need a signed note to post in the Pennsylvania section, but there's a WSJ editorial today on Governor Rendell's health care plan -- so it's my beat after all. Wrong Prescription, begins with Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell claim "that Jesus, Moses and Muhammad would back his plan for universal health care" (I guess Buddha was holding out for interstate competition with reduced state mandates).

The plan failed as part of the government shutdown budget, but the Governor has vowed a more incremental approach of expanding SCHIP and Medicare (he's been reading ThreeSources). So far, brave PA Republicans have staved it off.

Republicans also pointed out that Mr. Rendell's plan did nothing to address such cost increasers as medical liability or mandated insurance benefits. It would probably make the problem worse with regulations like guaranteed issue (so wait until you're sick to buy insurance) and premium price controls. Republicans offered an alternative consumer-driven plan, focusing on health savings accounts and a health-care tax credit, so the choice wasn't only Mr. Rendell or the status quo.

Now the Governor's plan is being sliced into at least 47 separate pieces of legislation. Mr. Rendell says he can cut $7.6 billion out of health spending first, but this is likely fictional because the calculations are based on charge data, not actual costs. "If we're ever going to have accessible health insurance for all Americans," Mr. Rendell recently noted, "we have to begin containing costs. If costs continue to spiral out of control, there is no way the government can afford to pay for it." A purer expression of the liberal health-care mentality would be hard to find.

Nope. "If costs continue to spiral out of control, there is no way the government can afford to pay for it." Sounds like a good bumper-sticker...

Pennsylvania Posted by jk at July 13, 2007 10:57 AM