[May 07, 2007]

      The Pennsylvania House Insurance Committee last week held two days of hearings on a bill (HB 700) based on Gov. Ed Rendell's (D) package of health care proposals, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports. The bill includes measures that would:

• Expand health insurance to all state residents;
  
  
• Assure pricing transparency for all health care providers;
  
  
• Improve care management of patients with chronic conditions; and
  
  
• Require hospitals to have electronic health records by 2009 as a condition for continuing hospital licensing.
  

John Lewis -- president and CEO of Armstrong County Memorial Hospital, a 157-bed hospital -- said that he supports many of the governor's proposals, but he is unsure how his hospital would be able to afford them. Lewis said that he is "really concerned now that so many things are coming at the same time that could put many community and rural hospitals at financial risk" (Stouffer, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 5/3).

Deborah Rice, a senior vice president at the insurer Highmark, said that the company is committed to working with other private insurance companies and the state to implement changes that target quality of care, patient safety, access to information, and preventive health and wellness.

Judith Solomon, senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said that lawmakers should be careful if they decide to remove some of Rendell's proposals from the bill, adding that the proposal must cover all state residents instead of only covering at-risk populations (Daly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 5/4).