Month: April 2008

No comments

Encouraging news from SEPTA

  By Transportation

That is the title for a blog post I’ve wanted to use for years. SEPTA has named a consumer advocate, Kim Scott Heinle, who is going to focus on msking the agency “available, responsive, honest and open.” Details are here: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20080425_SEPTA_names_customer_advoc…. I was a little skeptical of the appointment of an insider, Joe Casey, to replace Faye Moore as General Manager of SEPTA, although I said at the time that I have found most of the SEPTA managers I’ve worked with to be honest and responsive individuals who seem caught up in a system that too often was unresponsive and prone to dissembling. I knew Joe Casey just a little but he seemed like a decent guy. Now I’m really happy a to say that Casey is starting out very well. This move, along with others he has made, shows that he understands how frustrated people are in their daily… Continue reading

No comments

Waiting For Health Care: Doctors and patients need state action on health and malpractice insurance

  By Health Care

I wrote this for Dr. Valerie Arkoosh to sign. It was published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on April 16, 2008 I am a physician. And like so many other physicians in Pennsylvania, I’m waiting for the General Assembly to restore the MCare abatement program. MCare was set up to reduce medical malpractice premiums, which had risen to the point that physicians were leaving the state in droves. Since 2002, physicians in Pennsylvania have purchased half of their required malpractice insurance from the MCare program and the other half from private insurers. Most physicians get back half of their MCare costs while those of us in high-risk specialties receive a full abatement. But the abatement program expired in December and bills for MCare are due at the end of this month. While we doctors wait for our abatements, about 750,000 adults in Pennsylvania, most of whom work full time, also are… Continue reading

No comments

Small Businesses and Health Care

  By Health Care

I wrote this piece for two small business owners to sign. It was originally published on 2008-04-02 in the Philadelphia Daily News By PETER HANDLER & KAREN SINGER NOBODY will benefit more from HB 2005, the health-insurance reform bill now wending its way through the state Legislature, than the commonwealth’s small businesses. Yet the official lobbyists in Harrisburg for small business – the Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Businesses – are fighting to block it. Continue reading