Three cheers to the Berks legislators on the Family and Business Health Care Security Act (SB300/HB1660) Honor Roll. Be sure to thank State Representatives Tom Caltagirone (D-127) and Dante Santoni, Jr. (D-126) and State Senator Michael O’Pake (D-11) for their co-sponsorship and support. See the complete list of all 43 co-sponsors at www.HealthCare4AllPA.org and at The PA Healthcare Reform Honor Roll in this issue of CommonSense2.

A recent conversation with Representative Doug Reichley (R-134) revealed he was unfamiliar with the bill despite the fact that it sits in his Health and Human Services Committee. To educate him we sent him several documents that thoroughly explain the importance of single-payer health care reform. We must assume that either he didn’t read the material, didn’t understand the material, or doesn’t want all Pennsylvanians to be covered by a single, public, state insurer (see: Be a Single-Payer Reform Ambassador).

According to a campaign announcement in the Reading Eagle (2/28/08 B3), Reichley claims that his position on the “Health and Human Services (Committee) will help him prevent passage of a taxpayer-funded universal health care system and instead encourage tax credits for businesses that provide health care coverage and disease prevention programs for their employees.” We suppose it’s easy to be indifferent to the plight of many Pennsylvanians when you have no primary or general election opponents. He’s getting a free ride to victory. Next time he runs, search for a primary and general election opponent, someone who cares about health care, to run against him.

Representative Dave Kessler (D-130) stated to us, “Single-payer is a great idea,” but he is still unable to commit to co-sponsoring or even voting for HB 1660. We hope Mr. Kessler will come on board after further studying the legislation.

A member of State Senator Mike Folmer’s staff has indicated to us that Sen. Folmer (R-48) prefers Health Savings Accounts which Reading Hospital President and CEO, Scott Wolfe, in a Reading Eagle article, called a shell game.

Isn’t it ironic that state representatives and senators are offered taxpayer-supplied health insurance but turn a deaf ear to thousands of their constituents who would love to have such coverage?

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