Tom Corbett the Grinch
Share with others:
If you're looking for a reminder that life can sometimes imitate art, look no further than the recent news about the Corbett administration that's like something straight out of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol."
Apparently in just the last five months the administration has dropped more than 150,000 people, including 43,000 children, from the medical assistance rolls in Pennsylvania.
That's a staggering 1,000 people per day cut off from health care assistance! And not just any people, but the most needy people who can't afford to pay for health care coverage on their own or don't have access to the coverage they need.
"Bah humbug," you can almost hear the governor saying.
What's more, Pennsylvania stood alone in its insensitivity to people in need of medical assistance. In November, for example, when Pennsylvania cut 90,000 people, New Jersey, by comparison, added 391 people.
On its own, this news would be troubling, but pair it with the Corbett administration's decision earlier this year to terminate the adultBasic Care program that provided affordable health care coverage to Pennsylvania's working poor and you have a disturbing pattern of behavior.
Call it pathological Grinching. They can't help themselves.
The adultBasic termination was particularly appalling. The program was paid for by tobacco settlement money, not tax money, so there were no significant costs to the state. It wasn't a giveaway; people in the program had to pay premiums. The tobacco settlement money simply helped keep those premiums affordably low.
And it wasn't welfare. The program was for working men and women who have jobs but who make so little that they fall below the poverty line. They're people who work jobs that don't offer health care coverage and earn so little that most private health care options are priced out of their reach.
What's more, the adultBasic program was created by a Pennsylvania law that requires some of the money from the 1998 tobacco settlement to go into an account for adultBasic. So the Corbett administration's decision to kill the program, in essence, broke that law. That's why there is a civil lawsuit seeking to restore adultBasic for the tens of thousands of people who benefited from it.
At this time of year it's easy to look at a track record like this administration's -- one that disenfranchises the poorest and most needy Pennsylvanians -- and feel a sense of frustration. It's like a Christmas movie and Gov. Tom Corbett is the classic antagonist: Old Man Potter, The Grinch or Ebenezer Scrooge.
Except, in this case, we shouldn't expect the ghosts of Christmas past, present or future or Clarence the Angel to show Mr. Corbett the error of his ways.
The governor sees little downside in cutting the poor and needy from health care support because they're the people least likely to have a voice in our system. They're the least likely to speak up and they're the least likely to vote.
So it's up to the rest of us to speak out on their behalf. We're the voice of reason in this Christmas movie. But it can't just be at Christmastime; it has to be year round.
In the coming year, make it your mission to speak out on behalf of Pennsylvanians who are less fortunate and are being victimized by the system. Make your voice their voice.
First Published December 23, 2011 12:00 am
