Category: My Work

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Senate to Choose Between Health Catastrophe or Something Worse

  By ACA, Health Care, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts

Mitch McConnell and his Republican allies have one more trick up their sleeves to try to get some health care bill through the Senate. This week they will seek a vote to proceed to debate on the bill passed in the House on the understanding that there will be a process, colloquially known as voterama, in which a series of votes on one or more substitutes to the bill, or amendments, will be introduced. That is, Senators are being asked to proceed to debate without any clear idea what final bill they will eventually vote on. I will say more about the process in a moment. But first I want to urge you to join the Insure PA / Protect Our Care phone bank to ask people in those states with Senators who are unsure about their position to call those Senators and ask them to vote no. (You can… Continue reading

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STATEMENT: On the State of PA Budget Negotiations

  By PA Budget and Policy Center, Pennsylvania Budget, Statements

Marc Stier, director of the PA Budget and Policy Center, made the following statement on the current state of PA budget negotiations: “If news reports are accurate, enough members of the House Republican caucus heard the voices of their constituents who contacted them in the last 24 hours to demand new recurring revenues to balance the budget in a responsible way. With the failure of Speaker Turzai’s irresponsible plan to borrow even more deeply to close the deficit, the way is open for Senate Democrats and Republicans to forge a bipartisan revenue proposal that raises taxes without burdening working people and the middle class. We are hopeful that when the House Republican leadership brings such a plan to the floor, it will secure a bipartisan majority there, as well. “This is a good day not only for the fiscal health of the Commonwealth but for the future of our democracy.” Continue reading

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Statement on the CBO Score of BCRA–We Told You It Couldn’t Be Fixed

  By ACA, Health Care, My Work, PA Budget and Policy Center, Statements

Earlier this week we released a blog post and a long paper called, “It Can’t Be Fixed” that explained why the basic structure of all of the Republican “repeal and replace” necessarily leads to a health care system in which large numbers of Americans and Pennsylvanians lose insurance. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) evaluation of the last version of the Senates’ Better Care Reconciliation Act (without the Cruz Amendment) released on Thursday confirms our argument once again. The CBO predicts that 22 million people will lose health insurance in the first decade. Our quick analysis of the impact on Pennsylvania shows that over one million will lose insurance in our commonwealth. The basic problem remains that the Republicans are determined to radically reduce federal spending on health care by $1.2 trillion over ten years (and more in the second ten years.). Any bill that aims to reduce spending at this… Continue reading

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It Couldn’t Be Fixed: Policy and Politics in the Republican Health Care Bill

  By ACA, Health Care, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts

Now that the Senate Republican effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act has failed, let’s take a step back and understand why no bill based on the Republican approach to health care could have been fixed enough to reduce the pain to levels acceptable to a majority of Republicans in Congress, let alone to the American people. The basic design of the bill was deeply flawed from the perspective of anyone who thinks that America has a responsibility to guarantee quality, affordable health care to all. The design only made sense if one, instead, seeks a politically palatable way to reject that responsibility and reduce federal health care spending in order to cut taxes on large corporations and the rich. What started as a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) became a bill to partly repeal the health insurance regulations and subsidies for insurance purchased in… Continue reading

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Are the Republicans Ready to Gut Higher Education to Avoid a Severance Tax on Natural Gas Drilling?

  By Budget, Education, Higher Education, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts, Pennsylvania Budget, Severance Tax, Taxation

As we enter the third week of an impasse over funding the 2017-2018 Pennsylvania state budget, an astonishing possibility has come into view: the House Republicans, led by Speaker Mike and Turzai and Majority Leader Dave Reed, appear to be prepared to block funding for the four state-related universities – Penn State, University of Pittsburgh, Temple University and Lincoln University – rather than agree to the Governor’s demand that they raise $600 to $800 million in new recurring revenues. Governor Wolf and the Republican-led legislature have apparently agreed to a number of one-time revenue measures to close the budget deficit – proposals like borrowing from other funds or selling licenses for new gaming sites – that only bring in revenues in one year. But the Republicans, particularly in the House, appear unwilling to agree to Governor Wolf’s insistence that the fiscal health of the commonwealth requires new recurring tax revenues… Continue reading

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PA House GOP Stealth Attack on Medicaid

  By Medicaid, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts, Work requirements

**UPDATE 7/11/17 – 4:45 PM** The House passed the bill through to the Senate 102-91. The Senate must again vote on the bill as amended PA House Republican leaders are trying to force Pennsylvania to seek federal waivers for our Medicaid program that would establish requirements that Medicaid recipients either be working or searching for a job and that that ask them to pay premiums or higher co-pays for their insurance. These ideas were part of Governor Corbett’s plan to expand Medicaid, which Governor Wolf rightly rejected. Now, the House will vote on these terrible provisions as part of the budget code (instructions for implementing the budget) for 2017-18 after it was added as an amendment in the House Rules Committee. What’s the objection to work requirements or premiums for Medicaid? First, support for a work or job search requirement is based on a misconception that there are a large… Continue reading

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Revenue Options to Finish the 2017-18 Budget

  By Budget, Memos, PA Budget and Policy Center, Pennsylvania Budget, Taxation

Since 2010, Pennsylvania has consistently enacted budgets that, instead of being paid for by current revenues, borrow from the future. The general fund budget has been balanced by borrowing from other funds, shifting spending from one fiscal year to the next, and more. In this press memo, we outline a few revenue options with bipartisan support that could provide at least some of the long-term revenues needed to balance Pennsylvania’s budget. MEMO To: Editorial Page Editors, Editorial Board Members, Columnists, and Other Interested Parties From: Marc Stier, Director, Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center Date: July 10, 2017 Re: Revenue Options to Finish the 2017-18 Budget As legislative leadership and Governor Wolf look to wrap up the revenue portion of the 2017-18 state budget, the remaining negotiations is at least focused on the right subject: finding adequate and sustainable long-term revenues. Unfortunately, rather than work for new recurring revenues, Republican Leadership continues on the irresponsible… Continue reading

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S&P to PA: Snap Out of It

  By Budget, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts, Pennsylvania Budget

Remember when, in the movie Moonstruck, the character played by Nicholas Cage tells the character played by Cher that he loves her. And she slaps him in the face and says, “Snap out of it?” Well that’s what the financial firm Standard and Poor’s just told the state of Pennsylvaniayesterday. They, once again, threatened to downgrade our bonds – forcing up the interest rates we pay – if we don’t get our fiscal house in order. They are telling our General Assembly to: Snap out of our reliance on one-year revenues, like licenses for gaming or liquor sales to “balance” our budget. Snap out of our willingness to move money from one fund to another to “balance” our budget. Snap out of our penchant for over-estimating revenues to “balance” our budget. Snap out of our tendency to shift spending from one year to another to “balance” our budget. And most… Continue reading

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PRESS MEMO: New Estimates of the Loss of Federal Funding to Pennsylvania from the Senate Health Care Bill

  By ACA, Health Care, Memos, PA Budget and Policy Center, US

The Manatt Health Group and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation have released a study on the impact of the Senate health care bill, the Better Reconciliation Act of 2017, on the states. Their estimates of the impact of the bill confirms our recent study showing that Pennsylvania will suffer devastating reductions in federal funding for Medicaid. It also offers some more fine-grained detail on the nature of these reductions. MEMO To: Editorial Page Editors, Editorial Board Members, Columnists, and Other Interested Parties From: Marc Stier, Director, Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center Date: July 7, 2017 Re: New Estimates of the Loss of Federal Funding to Pennsylvania from the Senate Health Care Bill The Manatt Health Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation have released a new study of the impact of the Senate health care bill, the Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017, on the states. Their estimates of the impact of the bill confirms… Continue reading