Pennsylvania must not wait for Congress to act
Imagine that you are 67 and your spouse is 78. Your combined income from Social Security and pensions is around $27,700, putting you just $500 over the limit for the state’s prescription assistance programs. In fact, that income puts you out of range for many state and federal programs. But you and your spouse, who also needs dialysis three times a week, each take 12 medications every day. You’ve tried finding help through other prescription plans, but you’re paying $11,000 a year for those medications that you and your spouse need to stay healthy and to stay alive.
What would you do? Where would you turn?
Unfortunately, this is not a hypothetical scenario. It describes the situation in which one couple in western Pennsylvania has found themselves. It is a story similar to countless others for senior citizens across the state who are finding themselves unable to pay for the life-sustaining, even life-saving, medications they need.
We consider that unacceptable and have committed ourselves to finding the best possible way to provide access to these drugs to as many Pennsylvania seniors as possible. For years, we have studied this issue and pushed to expand the existing PACE and PACENET programs. In early June, House and Senate members from both parties worked with Gov. Ed Rendell to come up with a measure that would increase the income limits for the existing programs, in effect making at least 100,000 more seniors eligible for help paying for their prescriptions.
We achieved this by incorporating cost-containment measures for drug prices so that the expansion could come at no cost to Pennsylvania taxpayers. In a landmark show of bipartisan commitment to our state’s older citizens, the House unanimously approved the measure.
Under the bill we passed, H.B. 888, the couple described at the beginning would be eligible for help. They and so many others desperately need this assistance and are anxiously waiting for the expansion to take place.
Unfortunately, the bill has stalled in the state Senate. The Senate Republican leadership is refusing to consider the proposal until more is learned about proposed national prescription assistance plans. The Senate majority leader was quoted as saying he was comfortable the federal government was going to do something. The quote was from 2001. How much longer are we going to wait for action on the national level?
The argument for waiting has been that the state’s expansion would not take place until January 2004, which is true. Senate Republican leaders say there is little harm in waiting a little longer to vote on our bill, which is not true. The cost-containment measures included in the legislation would take effect immediately upon becoming law. Had the Senate passed the bill, it would have gone directly to the governor’s desk for his signature and Pennsylvania would be banking money as you read this.
Pennsylvania stands to lose about $90 million from waiting to pass this legislation this year. At a time when government needs to pinch its pennies and be cautious with spending, it’s difficult to justify waiting on these savings.
We need to look out for Pennsylvania and its citizens and not just rely on the federal government. Pennsylvania is leading the nation with PACE and PACENET. They are good programs that could be even better. There’s no reason to wait to make that happen.
It took eight years after Pennsylvania started the Children’s Health Insurance Program for the federal government to pass similar legislation. If we would have waited then, 100,000 Pennsylvania kids would have missed out over those eight years.
Ultimately, though, this is not just about money or Congress or politics. This is about what you would do if you were 67, earning too much money to get help paying for medication for you and your husband but not enough money to pay for them yourself. What would you do?
Call your state senator today and tell him or her you want the Senate to pass H.B. 888 as soon as possible on behalf of yourself or for those people in the newspaper who tell their stories and say, “We need help desperately.”
House Democrats Don Walko represents Allegheny County and Todd Eachus, Luzerne.