Genuine Outrage II

With the Corbett Administration’s typical impeccable timing – the day following my blog post last week questioning where Sen. Toomey’s new found outrage regarding Pennsylvanians’ health insurance was when the governor was kicking 41,000 working adults off adultBasic; removing 88,000 kids from Medical Assistance; or his denying 500,000+ residents health care at all; not to be outdone—Gov. Corbett’s Insurance Commissioner, Michael Consedine issued a letter, saying both he and the governor “…are deeply troubled by the flawed launch of the federally-facilitated marketplace…”
 

Consedine goes on to say his department has received over 100 complaints from residents.

Well, we already know that the Corbett administration doesn’t have much concern for the impact its policies have had on the health care of over 600,000 (and that’s a conservative estimate) Pennsylvanians.

But Consedine’s letter reminded me of another letter I received last month (Oct. 29) from Labor and Industry’s deputy secretary for compensation and insurance regarding the efforts L&I was making to correct its own flawed launch, and that they are working “diligently to resolved system defects, clean up inconsistent data, and implement improvements.”

So it turns out the rocky launch of health care exchange under Obamacare, which Pennsylvania like dozens of other states, opted to let the federal government operate is not unlike what Pennsylvania’s own Workers' Compensation Program's website  encountered in addition to problems it's phone line had last year.

The difference is scale.

While healthcare.gov is tasked with shepherding millions of Americans through the process of purchasing health care, Pennsylvania’s Workers’ Comp system deals with a fraction of that.

So before Gov. Corbett and his minions cast stones at a program aimed at fundamentally improving the health of our nation, perhaps they should consider Corbett’s own imperfections.

Genuine outrage?

Last week while federal HHS secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, underwent another round of mainly disingenuous moral outrage from congressmen and women criticizing the implementation of a plan they been opposing the implementation of for three years, our state’s junior senator, Pat Toomey offered the evidence he’s been hearing from some Pennsylvanians.

No doubt the stories Toomey cited are real; one woman he spoke of is even from Lancaster County. But I find Sen. Toomey’s outrage misplaced and poorly-timed.

See, I didn’t hear a peep from the newly-elected senator in 2011 when Gov. Corbett decided his first action as governor should be the elimination adultBasic -- which if you remember was the low cost health care plan, covering for over 40,000 working Pennsylvanians.  Or a year later when the Insurance Department reported that 40% of those kicked off adultBasic and forced to sign up for new coverage that cost them more; or when 88,000 kids were kicked off Medical Assistance.

Nor have I heard him call on the governor to expand Medicaid, which would be a way to cover over a half million Pennsylvania residents and the easiest way to shrink the list of uninsured Pennsylvania’s by over 50%.

If Pat Toomey (and others) were actually for covering more Pennsylvanians and stimulating job growth in the Commonwealth he’d join with the rest of us calling on Gov. Corbett to expand Medicaid.

While Sen. Toomey was admonishing Sebelius on Capitol Hill, PA’s other Senator Bob Casey was calling on Gov. Corbett to accept Medicaid Expansion, like the governors of Ohio, New Jersey, Michigan and Arizona (see where I’m going here) have.

Sadly, Casey’s request will likely fall on deaf ears, as Gov. Corbett is busy on a 10 day tour of Pennsylvania in an attempt to rewrite his abysmal record of governing over the past 3 years.