Pennsylvania
Pa. health bills on workforce shortages, ACA protections take an early session lead
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Health care is top of mind for Pennsylvania leaders and lawmakers this year as the state legislature begins hammering out a new budget and considers a slew of new bills and policies.
In his annual budget address Tuesday, Gov. Josh Shapiro urged legislators to tackle workforce shortages, distressed hospitals and for-profit private equity health care operations.
Meanwhile, Republicans say they’re focusing on bringing down spending and costs of programs like Medicaid, an insurance program for people with low incomes.
Here are some of the top health care legislative priorities getting attention early this year.
Affordable Care Act protections
The Affordable Care Act, passed into law by Congress in 2010, guarantees essential health benefits like free annual exams and insurance coverage for blood tests and prescriptions, mental health and addiction treatment, emergency care and more.
The federal law also bans the practice of insurers denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions, allows children to stay on their parents’ plans until the age of 26, and offers insurance options to individuals and small businesses.
During his first presidential term, Donald Trump attempted to repeal the ACA, but failed in the legislature. In his second term, he has pledged to make changes to the program and how it is funded, with no specific details yet on those plans.
In his budget address, Shapiro said that Pennsylvania should adopt ACA protections into state law. About 1.2 million people in the state get health care through ACA plans, officials said.
“If we fail to do so and the ACA goes away, health care costs will dramatically increase for Pennsylvanians,” he said.
Pennsylvania Senate and House Democrats are spearheading a series of bills that would adopt ACA protections into state law, with early support from some House Republicans. Bills have been referred to respective banking and insurance committees.
The war with Iran could start impacting your wallet as soon as today.
Jim Garrity from AAA East Central says oil prices are up.
“They’re hovering around $72. They were pretty consistently around $65, $66 for a while,” he said.
Nationally, AAA said the average for a gallon of regular sits at about $3, up approximately six cents from last week.
In Pennsylvania, it’s around $3.12 a gallon, and in the Pittsburgh region, it’s around $3.24 a gallon. That’s actually down about four cents from last week.
Garrity added that gas prices this time of year would already be increasing, usually because of higher demand for the warmer months and the production of the summer blend of gas used for those months.
The impacts of what’s happening in Iran may not be immediate, which could be part of why our region and the state overall have not seen a spike yet, he said.
“It could be a couple of days later. It could be up to a week later,” Garrity said.
A lot of people are watching what happens with the Strait of Hormuz. Iran borders it to the north, and 20% of the world’s oil goes through it.
Iran is one of the world’s biggest oil producers, and China gets a lot of that oil.
“If there is an impact there, you could see oil start to come in from other parts of the world, which has a downstream effect on [the United States],” Garrity said.
One way you can save on gas if prices increase in our area is by slowing down.
“When you drive faster every five miles, over 50 miles an hour, your fuel efficiency is going down,” Garrity said. “You’re making the car work harder, making the gasoline consumption less effective.”
Garrity added that in 2022, when our area and many others saw some of the highest gas prices ever recorded, people changed their driving habits.
“We saw people make seemingly permanent changes to their driving behaviors, driving less in general, consolidating trips,” he said.
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