Pennsylvania Governor's Funding Mechanism For Universal Health Coverage Could Cause More Physicians To Leave State, Opinion Piece Says

Main Category: Primary Care / General Practice
Also Included In: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Article Date: 29 Oct 2008 - 11:00 PDT

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Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell's (D) "Cover All Pennsylvanians" plan will "increase the cost of practicing medicine, make health care more expensive and drive doctors out of the state," Frederic Jarrett, a vascular and general surgeon and clinical professor of surgery at the University of Pittsburgh, writes in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece.

Rendell proposes funding his plan in part by "raiding the surplus" in the MCARE abatement program, which helps physicians pay for medical malpractice insurance, and has "threatened to veto any legislation that would block him from doing so," Jarrett writes. He adds that the $500 million surplus in MCARE is "used if and as needed to abate physician premiums," which at one point "for some specialties had risen as high as 55% of a doctor's annual income."

In addition, the state Department of Health earlier this year reported that the number of physicians practicing in the state has declined by 6% in the last few years and now 20% of medical school residents practice in the state, compared with 60% in 1992, according to Jarrett. "These trends will be exacerbated if MCARE funds are siphoned off," he writes, adding that the program "is not an inexhaustible source of revenue. It was created to help doctors afford the skyrocketing price of insurance, something it will not be able to do as effectively as it has in the past if it must also subsidize a new health insurance program" (Jarrett, Wall Street Journal, 10/25).

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