Posts by marc stier

PA House GOP Stealth Attack on Medicaid

Posted by Marc Stier on July 10, 2017 9:41 pm
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**UPDATE 7/11/17 - 4:45 PM** The House passed the bill through to the Senate 102-91. The Senate must again vote on the bill as amended

PA House Republican leaders are trying to force Pennsylvania to seek federal waivers for our Medicaid program that would establish requirements that Medicaid recipients either be working or searching for a job and that that ask them to pay premiums or higher co-pays for their insurance. 

These ideas were part of Governor Corbett’s plan to expand Medicaid, which Governor Wolf rightly rejected.

MEMO: Revenue Options to Finish the 2017-18 Budget

Posted by Marc Stier on July 10, 2017 11:48 am
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MEMO

To: Editorial Page Editors, Editorial Board Members, Columnists, and Other Interested Parties

From: Marc Stier, Director, Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center

Date: July 10, 2017

Re: Revenue Options to Finish the 2017-18 Budget

New Estimates of the Loss of Federal Funding to Pennsylvania from the Senate Health Care Bill

Posted by Marc Stier on July 8, 2017 10:37 am
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The Manatt Health Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation have released a new study of the impact of the Senate health care bill, the Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017, on the states. Their estimates of the impact of the bill confirms our recent study showing that Pennsylvania will suffer devastating reductions in federal funding for Medicaid.

The new study provides two sets of estimates of how much federal funding each state loses – one if the state keeps the Medicaid Expansion and a second if it does not. According to the study, if Pennsylvania eliminates the Medicaid Expansion in 2021, the state stands to lose $30.1 billion in federal funding between 2020 and 2026 – $25 billion as a result of the elimination of federal funding for the Medicaid Expansion, and $5.1 billion as a result of the impact of per capita caps on traditional Medicaid.

S&P to PA: Snap Out of It

Posted by Marc Stier on July 7, 2017 8:01 am
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Remember when, in the movie Moonstruck, the character played by Nicholas Cage tells the character played by Cher that he loves her. And she slaps him in the face and says, “Snap out of it?”

Senate Bill Raises Marketplace and Employer-based Premiums for Most Pennsylvanians

Posted by Marc Stier on July 5, 2017 9:23 am
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We have been focused recently on the impact of the Senate health care bill on Medicaid, mainly because the dangers of both the House and Senate bills to Medicaid have not been well known, and because the Senate bill is far worse than the House bill. 

So, in this and next post I want to remind you that if you purchase health insurance on the exchanges / marketplaces or receive it from your employer, the Senate bill is bad for you as well.

How Dumb Does Senator Toomey Think We Are?

Posted by Marc Stier on July 2, 2017 9:58 pm
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I’m not just a practitioner of political rhetoric, but also a connoisseur of it. I can appreciate a good argument and a well-turned phrase put forward by our ideological opponents. And, rather than get disturbed by what the other side says, I take their best work as a challenge. But what truly does get me angry is when our opponents not only lie, but do so with arguments that are insulting to the intelligence of the people we are trying to influence – the citizens of Pennsylvania and America.

State As Well As Federal Republicans Go After Medicaid

Posted by Marc Stier on July 1, 2017 12:08 am
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At both the state and federal level, Republican Party leaders seem to be on the warpath against Medicaid. Thankfully, rank and file Republicans in both legislatures and the public seem to be pushing back against them, as long, bi-partisan support for Medicaid continues.

The Republicans Of My Youth Didn't Encourage Vice

Posted by Marc Stier on June 30, 2017 5:12 pm
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Note: This is the second of two pieces on the Republicans of my youth..

Part II: Encouraging Vice

The Republicans of my youth were not only men of fiscal rectitude, they were men of moral rectitude. I can’t say what they did in private. I’m sure some of them drank from time to time and some drank too much. They probably also gambled from time to time either on a trip to Las Vegas or at the local trotter track, or maybe with a local bookie. But in public they frowned on these vices. They believed that people had a right to make their own choices, but they believed that government had a responsibility to direct people away from behavior that could be dangerous to themselves or others.

The Republicans of My Youth Didn't Borrow to Balance Budgets

Posted by Marc Stier on June 30, 2017 4:46 pm
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First of two pieces of why I miss the Repbulicans of my yout. 

There are times when I miss the old-fashioned Republicans of my youth, in the small-town America in which I grew up, about 40 miles over the Pennsylvania border in rural New York. Those mostly Protestant Republicans were the bankers, the insurance agents, the ministers, as well as many of the older doctors and lawyers. They didn’t like taxes. But they believed in the common good – in schools and parks and good sidewalks. In roads and bridges, in water system and sewers.

First Look at the 2017-18 State Budget

Posted by Marc Stier on June 30, 2017 12:09 pm
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While we will need some time to analyze the details of the budget that the House and Senate will pass today, our preliminary view is that it is, as we had expected from the beginning of the year, an austere budget that does not really address the deep public investment deficit of the state, but it certainly could have been far worse. Given that the General Assembly seems utterly unwilling to raise revenues to meet public needs, negotiations by the leaders of the legislature and Governor Wolf have led to a budget that still takes some small steps forward.