Thousands of Pennsylvania doctors have been shown to a seat in the waiting room next to the state's nearly 800,000 uninsured adults. Maybe together they can get better attention from the Republican-led state Senate.
Physicians and the uninsured have a shared stake in seeing the end of an apparent grudge match that has Senate leaders blocking Gov. Rendell's efforts to expand health care for poor and low-paid Pennsylvanians.
The doctors and their patients were lumped together this week with the lapse of a five-year, $1 billion state subsidy program that helped doctors purchase medical malpractice insurance.
Months ago, Rendell, with backing from House Democrats, linked the renewal of the insurance subsidy, known as the MCare abatement, to the governor's proposed expansion of health coverage for the uninsured.
But since Senate leaders are refusing to act either on Rendell's smart "Cover All Pennsylvanians" proposal or a more modest plan to cover 220,000 more working-age people approved by the House on March 17, thousands of physicians are out of luck right now.
As of Monday, malpractice insurance policies came due for nearly 19,000 physicians and other medical professionals. Without the subsidy, primary-care doctors will have to dig into their own pockets for an additional $1,500 a year, while high-risk specialists will be out about $15,000.
That extra cost isn't going to bankrupt anyone's medical practice, but the subsidy lapse need not have happened in the first place.
The smaller House-approved health plan more than met Republican concerns over cost. It also provided incentives for small businesses to offer insurance to lower-wage workers, and embraced the GOP's core proposal for medical savings accounts, which would enable individuals to purchase high-deductible health-care policies. Another progressive proposal from the House would assure that health insurers could not turn away people due to medical histories.
From the physicians' perspective, there's even more at stake since the House also approved a generous extension of the MCare abatement. Over a 10-year period, the state would bestow $3.3 billion more in aid to help doctors cover malpractice insurance costs.
Rather than debate the workable House plan authored by Rep. Todd Eachus (D., Luzerne), though, senators sent the House a stopgap proposal for a one-year renewal of MCare.
Doctors should find it odd that Senate leaders still are being supported by the Pennsylvania Medical Society and the hospitals' trade group.
With billions more in aid being offered to them, physicians have to be asking themselves why their mouthpieces are taking the wrong side in this health-care reform debate.