Joining Pastor Harrison to speak at the Health Care Access Demonstration were Berry Friesen, Public Affairs Manager, Pennsylvania Health Access Network (PHAN); Sharon Ward, Executive Director, The Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center; and Jacqueline Rucker, Executive Director, Christian Churches United (Harrisburg).
High school youth and leaders participating in a LAMPa advocacy/public policy ministry immersion day in the state capital as part of the Crossroads Event of Theological Education with Youth were present for the health care access demonstration as well.
Health Care Access Demonstration – Pennsylvania Health Access Network
Pennsylvania State Capitol – June 25, 2008
Remarks by The Rev. Neil P. Harrison
Executive Director, Lutheran Advocacy Ministry in Pennsylvania
Good afternoon and thank you for joining us. I am Neil Harrison, Director of the Lutheran Advocacy Ministry in Pennsylvania, the state public policy office and advocacy ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and a member of the Pennsylvania Health Access Network.
More than 17 months ago, Pennsylvania lawmakers were asked to take steps to address Pennsylvanians’ growing concern about the cost of their health insurance and to take steps to address the terrible plight of the Commonwealth’s 700,000 uninsured adults. As the legislative session draws to a close for the summer we are here to remind lawmakers that their work is undone, and to ask that they pass the bill to make the promise of affordable health insurance a reality.
The cost of the inaction is real and it is displayed before you. On March 17, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, with bipartisan support, passed Senate Bill 1137, to create the PA ABC (Access to Basic Care) insurance program. In the 100 days since that action was taken, 200 Pennsylvanians have died as a result of their lack of health insurance. This tragic waste of life is unnecessary and unacceptable in the richest nation on the planet, in a state with some of the finest health care institutions in the nation.
For every day of delay, two more Pennsylvanians will lose their lives to illnesses that are preventable, diseases that are treatable, to health care that is available to those who can afford it.
Lawmakers complain that time is running out for passage of the state budget. But the clock is ticking for hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians, and that delay can be deadly.
The uninsured in our communities are often invisible and voiceless. But they are all around us...the teachers who care for our children in child care programs, aides who care for our aging parents, bartenders and waitresses, clerks at the grocery store.
We thank all the House members who have made health care a priority and urge them to fight to see this program enacted. We urge the Senate to take up HB 1137 before the recess and to approve the funds necessary to ensure PA ABC is operating at the earliest possible date. Seventeen months is long enough; the time for excuses and delays is over; the time for action is upon us.
It is unacceptable that there are 700,000 adult Pennsylvanians that are uninsured. Ensuring that health care is assured, available and affordable for every person is an economic and moral challenge.
Health and Health Care is one of LAMPa’s top two public policy priorities. Lutheran Advocacy Ministry in Pennsylvania…Lutheran Christians stand together today with other leaders in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and on behalf of all those who have died and will die due to a lack of health insurance, to say that the time for health care reform is now.
Pennsylvania has a health care crisis; and, without action, quality, affordable insurance as we know it will be a thing of the past. It’s time to take the next step and connect the 700,000 adult Pennsylvanians that are uninsured to health care. Let’s take this major step forward now by passing health care reform in PA before the 2008 summer legislative break!