Need for Good, Affordable Health Care Is Same Today As It Was Yesterday

Penn Action and Pennsylvania Health Care for America Now Reacts to Massachusetts Special Election Results

Need for Good, Affordable Health Care Is Same Today As It Was Yesterday

Penn Action, a coalition partner of Health Care for America Now (HCAN) – the nation’s largest health care reform campaign – released the following statement after Republican Scott Brown defeated Democrat Martha Coakley in Tuesday’s special election for the Senate seat in Massachusetts:

Robin Stelly, Penn Action (field coordinator)

“The need for good, affordable health care for everyone in Pennsylvania and the nation is the same today as it was yesterday. People in our state and in Bucks County still need to know they will be protected from medical bankruptcy, won’t be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions, and can get good, affordable insurance either through their job or on their own.

Health Care for America Now is committed to winning a guarantee of good, affordable health care we all can count on, and we will continue to push aggressively to get the best health care reform bill possible to the President’s desk for his signature as quickly as possible.

Tuesday’s vote was not a referendum on healthcare reform. It was a referendum on a particular candidate in a climate in which people, hard-pressed by the economy, are impatient for change. People are clearly angry and want more change, not less. Congress must keep going and finish health care reform.

Our nation’s health care crisis is not an incremental problem and cannot be fixed with incremental solutions. In survey after survey, voters continue to voice strong support for forcing health insurers to stop excluding people with pre-existing conditions, guaranteeing everyone has access to good, affordable coverage, and requiring health plans to spend premiums on medical care, not profits. All those popular core elements of reform are tied together, and we cannot do one without the others.

Massachusetts has shown that health reform works, with 98% of people covered and insurers not allowed to deny people based on pre-existing conditions. It’s time for the rest of the country to have the same access to good, affordable care.

  We are on track to pass a strong comprehensive bill, and we will stay focused on that until

  the President signs the bill into law.”