Corbett budget opts out of health coverage for 500,000 low-income residents

If Governor Corbett's budget is approved, the commonwealth will opt out of the additional state Medicaid coverage President Obama proposed as part of the Affordable Care Act.

The budget proposed by Governor Corbett Feb. 5 will not extend Medicaid benefits to nearly 500,000 low-income Pennsylvanians. One of the optional elements of the federal Affordable Care Act, the extension of the benefits has been rejected by several states with republican governors. Corbett is one.

Although the extension of Medicaid coverage is 95 percent funded by the federal government for the first year, Corbett expressed concerns about costs for subsequent years when the state would have to match more of the federal dollars. The governor's announcement that he would not comply with this measure of "Obamacare" met with applause from Republicans and boos from Democrats.

For low-income Pennsylvanians, the governor's move is part of an ongoing dedication to cutting health care insurance coverage for those most in need. AdultBasic, the health insurance for the working poor funded by tobacco settlement monies paid to the state, was axed in 2011 by Corbett. He tried to use the tobacco money  — earmarked specifically to cover health care insurance costs and to fund medical research — to underwrite his proposed $220 million Liberty Loan Fund for businesses instead. (The governor's proposal was shot down legislatively.)

Although the state's Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) provides health insurance to all uninsured children and teens who are not eligible for or enrolled in Medicaid, the programs making health care affordable to their parents (the people, after all, who must take their children to medical appointments, get them treatment and prescription for medicines covered by CHIP) have been zeroed out or — as in this case — "opted out of" in a move that can only be understood as more of the political maneuvering that brought us the rush to institute Voter ID and to redistrict to old census numbers before the presidential election in order to, as Rep. Turzai explained it, put PA in Mitt Romney's (and the GOP's) pocket.

We understand, it is important to look at the future costs of the extension of Medicaid coverage. That sort of budgetary consideration is, in a sense, something like preventive health care in that it wants to address what pops up now to help avoid future crises. But that sort of preventive-to-avoid-future-catastrophe is precisely what Corbett and his cronies are denying 500,000 Pennsylvanians by opting out providing coverage for them.

Republicans like to characterize their democratic colleagues as fiscally irresponsible; the Dems, in turn, characterize the GOP as grinches who would have a hard time locating their hearts even with GPS. In this particular instance it is hard not to side with the Dems. The numbers are really people. The costs are really insulin and asthma inhalers and blood pressure medications and antibiotics. Given a choice between covering the medication cost for parents whose households depends on them being healthy enough to bring in regular paychecks versus creating a program of attractively priced loans and tax breaks for new businesses is a no-brainer. 

But until we have a governor who acknowledges that his responsibility is to the many in Pennsylvania rather than the privileged few, that no-brainer has been rejected and in its stead is a no-hearter.