Making Right Choices in Pennsylvania’s Health Care

Today, 1.2 million Pennsylvanians are uninsured, and The Affordable Care Act wants that at least half these number of people are insured for health care. Pennsylvania has HealthChoices Medicaid program for the working poor which is a public - private partnership. The HealthChoices Medicaid is a primary delivery system for insuring the state's working poor which is a public-private partnership and is a national success story, HealthChoices provides accessible, high quality care and controls cost, saving taxpayers billions of dollars since its inception.

Governor Corbett has been suggesting bypassing HealthChoices and expanding Medicaid through commercial insurers. This will result in a lot of difficulties - as large numbers of people with very challenging healthcare needs have little to no experience navigating the complexities of health insurance will land squarely on the rolls of private insurance companies.

People in this sector have issues due to severe poverty and many have not been to a doctor or even a dentist in years. People with ailments like diabetes and hypertension are not treated which lead to additional problems. They are a population without knowledge of English and need help to understand about prescription drugs and follow up visits.

HealthChoices is a fully operational and successful program suited to the low-income population and if the government could use this framework to expand and improve health care the people would benefit while saving the state of a lot of expenses. The Governor can leverage HealthChoices for coverage to people who really need health insurance.

References:

Hannah Punitha (IRDA Licence Number: 2710062)

William S. George,

Source: Medindia