HARRISBURG -- While the state Legislature will be on a long summer recess, Pittsburgh-area advocates who are pushing for a major health care expansion plan will be hard at work.

"This is not just an issue that goes on during the legislative session," said Ted Zimmer, an organizer with Pittsburgh's Consumer Health Coalition. While legislators are on break, dozens of Pennsylvanians will die because their lack of insurance meant they didn't have easy access to health care or prescription medicine, argues Families USA.

The Consumer Health Coalition, Health Care for Health Care Workers and other groups were in Harrisburg yesterday to lobby for Gov. Ed Rendell's Pennsylvania Access to Basic Care plan. The plan, approved by the state House in March, would subsidize health insurance for adults with incomes up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level, or $35,200 a year for a three-member family. The Senate Banking and Insurance Committee met yesterday to gather testimony on the plan.

But Mr. Rendell, a Democrat, said on Tuesday that there probably wasn't enough time for the Legislature to hammer out a major health care expansion while simultaneously working on the state budget, due June 30.

During the hearing yesterday, Sen. Don White, R-Indiana, chairman of the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee, said the same. "As of yet, we've not been able to find any common ground," he said, speaking of the difference between the governor's plan and the Senate GOP's HealthNET plan.

Thus yesterday's hearing was less in anticipation of imminent action than it was about slowing the House Democrats, who sent their plan over to the Senate after drastically altering Senate bill 1137. "We're not anticipating any action on the bill," said Joe Pittman, Mr. White's chief of staff. "We're more concerned these are fully vetted and done in the right way." Senate Republicans have pitched their plan, which would seek to improve care available at community health centers and create a high-risk insurance pool for those too sick to find coverage elsewhere.

Part of yesterday's hearing dealt with the potential unintended marketplace reactions to the governor's health plan.

Would businesses, for example, drop employees from their health care plans if a new low-cost alternative was available on the Pennsylvania's dime?

There's no evidence so far that such a sloughing has taken place in Massachusetts, where a 2006 health care reform law created a new channel for low-cost health insurance plans, said Kevin Wrege of the Council for Affordable Health Insurance.

But then, it may be too early too tell, given that Massachusetts has spent more money than it had forecast on the program.

"Enrollment has been robust," he said. "There are clearly some cost challenges."