Pennsylvania Republicans Warm to Single Payer

March 2, 2010

What’s in the water in Pennsylvania?
Republicans are warming to the idea of single payer health insurance for the commonwealth.
Take, for example, the Pennsylvania Senate.
The Pennsylvania Senate is controlled by Republicans.
There are fifty seats in the Senate.
Thirty of the Senators are Republican.
And twenty are Democrat.
Single payer activists in Pennsylvania are passing around a resolution in the Senate.
The resolution calls for a study of the economic impact of a single payer health care system in Pennsylvania.
So far, 10 out of the 30 Republican Senators have signed onto the resolution.
Eighteen of the 20 Democrats have signed on.
How did single payer activists get ten Senate Republicans to support a study of single payer?
Chuck Pennacchio, executive director of Health Care for All Pennsylvania, says the winning coalition for single payer is going to be “a coalition of conscience Democrats and conscience Republicans.”
“We’re not going to get a whole lot of Republicans, but we’re going to get enough to get us over the top,” Pennacchio said. “It was a simple matter of persuading the Senate that health care reform should be based on evidence.”
“The simple argument was that we wanted evidence based policy,” Pennacchio said.
“Legislation rises or falls on the basis of the economics. And we found ten Republican Senators who are willing to support a study of single payer.”
“A lot of folks in the movement are more interested in winning an argument than winning legislation,” Pennacchio says. “I would rather sit down and dispassionately explain how a one payer system will save our hospitals and control costs. I invite a give and take process. I’ve overcome the problem — it’s a money issue. It’s not a party issue.”
Pennacchio believes that the same strategy could have worked at the federal level, but that the Obama administration “totally messed it up.”
“They should have sat down with the Republicans and made the economic argument for single payer,” Pennacchio said.
Pennacchio is pushing hard to get single payer passed by the end of the year.
Governor Ed Rendell – who has pledged to sign a single payer bill if it reaches his desk – leaves office in January 2011.
And while all four Democrats who are running to take his spot have also pledged to sign a single payer bill, the favored Republican – Attorney General Tom Corbett – remains non-committal.
Pennachio believes that once the resolution passes, the study can be completed withinin six weeks.
And then the legislature can move the single payer bill by the end of the year.

What’s in the water in Pennsylvania?

Republicans are warming to the idea of single payer health insurance for the Commonwealth.

Take, for example, the Pennsylvania Senate.

The Pennsylvania Senate is controlled by Republicans.

There are fifty seats in the Senate.

Thirty of the Senators are Republican.

And twenty are Democrat.

Single payer activists in Pennsylvania are passing around a resolution in the Senate.

The resolution calls for a study of the economic impact of a single payer health care system in Pennsylvania.

So far, 10 out of the 30 Republican Senators have signed onto the resolution.

Eighteen of the 20 Democrats have signed on.

How did single payer activists get ten Senate Republicans to support a study of single payer?

Chuck Pennacchio, executive director of Health Care for All Pennsylvania, says the winning coalition for single payer is going to be “a coalition of conscience Democrats and conscience Republicans.”

“We’re not going to get a whole lot of Republicans, but we’re going to get enough to get us over the top,” Pennacchio said. “It was a simple matter of persuading the Senate that health care reform should be based on evidence.”

“Legislation rises or falls on the basis of the economics. And we found ten Republican Senators who are willing to support a study of single payer.”

“A lot of folks in the movement are more interested in winning an argument than winning legislation,” Pennacchio said. “I would rather sit down and dispassionately explain how a one payer system will save our hospitals and control costs. I invite a give and take process. It’s a money issue. It’s not a party issue.”

Pennacchio believes that the same strategy could have worked at the federal level, but that the Obama administration “totally messed it up.”

“They should have sat down with the Republicans and made the economic argument for single payer,” Pennacchio said.

Pennacchio is pushing hard to get single payer passed by the end of the year.

Governor Ed Rendell – who has pledged to sign a single payer bill if it reaches his desk – leaves office in January 2011.

And while all four Democrats who are running to take his spot have also pledged to sign a single payer bill, the favored Republican – Attorney General Tom Corbett – remains non-committal.

Pennachio believes that once the resolution passes, the study can be completed withinin six weeks.

And then the legislature can move the single payer bill by the end of the year.