Call Your Legislators Today

Today Before Your Mcare Payment Is Used to Balance the State Budget

Last year, Governor Rendell used the extension of the Mcare abatement program in a game of political football in his effort to provide health care coverage for the uninsured.  At the end of 2008, a political impasse killed the abatement program and the 100% Mcare surcharge discount for high-risk physicians - including emergency physicians - and a 50% reduction for all others ended.
 
This year, the governor wants to use the cigarette tax and auto CAT funds in the Health Care Provider Retention Account (HCPRA), AND the Mcare premium assessment funds paid by physicians to balance the state budget deficit.   

At this point it looks like the 700M plus in the HCPRA account will be used to help balance the budget. 

The governor also wants to use the 100+million in the Mcare fund: Dollars paid out of your own pocket for liability insurance to cover the state’s budget shortfall.  

Taking your money to balance the budget instead of using it to lower premiums is the wrong thing to do.  PaACEP is supporting the efforts of the Pennsylvania Medical Society to stop this outrageous attempt to balance the budget on the backs of physicians.  

The following information is provided by the Medical Society.  Please call your state House and Senate member TODAY!
  
Political action news from the Pennsylvania Medical Society 

A budget deal being hammered out right now in the General Assembly would take the more than $100 million of the surplus balance in the Mcare Fund—a surplus that only exists because physicians and other health care providers have paid excess Mcare assessments.

The Health Care Provider Retention Fund (from cigarette taxes), which the Pennsylvania Medical wanted to use to phase out the Mcare fund, is already gone. 

The Pennsylvania Medical Society is urging all physicians to contact their state legislators. Please contact your state representative first—because we stand the best chance of getting support in the state House of Representatives—and then contact your state senator. Find them with Capwiz. 

Tell lawmakers that you are angry and that they should oppose using money you paid to the Mcare Fund to balance the state budget. Tell them that it is wrong to balance the state budget on the backs of health care providers. (Visit the Pennsylvania Medical Society website for more talking points.)  

The Pennsylvania Medical Society believes that state law requires that this surplus be used to reduce the 2009 Mcare assessment. The Medical Society and the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania (HAP) have appealed the 2009 assessment, but that lawsuit won’t be decided in time to protect the money in the Mcare Fund. A budget deal could be finalized any day. 

This is one of our last chances to protect the money before the budget is signed. Please help us by calling your legislators as soon as possible. Let us know who you have contacted so that we can make sure every legislator hears from a physician.