FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 12, 2008
CONTACT: Erik Arneson
earneson@pasen.gov
717-787-4712
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HealthNET PA, Package to Improve Health Care Access and Affordability, Introduced

A comprehensive health care package designed to improve health care access and affordability by building on approaches that are working and doing it in a fiscally responsible way was announced this week by Senate Republicans.

Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R-9) supports the HealthNET PA proposal. "This package of bills proposes solutions from many different perspectives," said Sen. Pileggi. "It allows people easier access to health care insurance, but the heart of it is an expansion of the health clinics that exist in Pennsylvania. These clinics provide health care directly, efficiently, and in community-based settings. It is the most cost-effective way to provide direct health care to people who otherwise would not have access."

HealthNET PA is a $100 million blueprint that would expand access to health care and medicine to 507,000 uninsured and low-income working Pennsylvanians. It utilizes information technology to control costs and reduce health care-associated infections, and provides expanded insurance options for employers and families.

A central component of HealthNET PA is a plan to expand the availability of health care clinics across Pennsylvania to provide "medical homes" for 175,000 working poor clients and ease pressure on hospital emergency rooms.

Dr. Zane Gates, medical director at a health clinic in Altoona, said: "Most of the health insurance bestowed upon the working poor will cover only catastrophic events rather than routine preventive care visits. It is much more cost effective to delay the inevitable complications of such diseases such as hypertension and diabetes with routine office visits instead of lengthy and costly hospital stays that drain the entire health care system."

Pennsylvania currently ranks fifth-best in the nation in the number of citizens covered by health insurance, with 92 percent of the population covered. Nearly 16 percent of Pennsylvanians, or 2 million residents, are already covered by government-subsidized health care.

More information about state issues can be found on Senator Pileggi's web site, www.senatorpileggi.com.