3RD CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT Challenger pushes health-care bill

The bill has been sitting in a House subcommittee for 18 months.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
SHARON, Pa. -- The Democratic challenger for the 3rd Congressional District seat believes the nation's health-care ills can be cured by a bill already sitting in Congress.
Steven Porter called for support of House Bill 676, which would ensure complete comprehensive health care for every man, woman and child in America.
The United States has 25 percent of the world's wealth yet can't provide health-care coverage for all of its citizens, Porter said Tuesday, adding that health care is a right, not a privilege.
Insurance companies
The problem with health care now is that insurance companies have set themselves up as the middleman, siphoning off between 30 percent and 40 percent of the health-care money.
They don't offer any health-care services but only shuffle paper and money, Porter said.
House Bill 676 is basically the Physicians National Health Plan offered by the nation's doctors in 2003, Porter said, noting that the plan was so good that it was turned into federal legislation.
It's been sitting in the House Subcommittee on Health since March 2003, however, he said.
His assertion
Insurance and pharmaceutical companies and other lobbyists opposed to its passage have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to legislators seeking to keep the system running as it now does, Porter charged.
He said his opponent, incumbent Phil English of Erie, R-3rd, has taken thousands of dollars from those companies.
House Bill 676 would provide primary care, specialized care, prescription drugs, eye care, dental care, long-term care, mental health care, medical equipment and even chiropractic care for everyone at affordable rates, Porter said.
It would eliminate insurance companies from the equation and hand the administration of a national health program to Medicare and Medicaid offices already in place, Porter added.
To pay for the program, the bill calls for implementation of a 3.3 percent employer payroll tax, maintaining the current 1.45 percent Medicare payroll tax, imposing a graduated tax on workers ranging from 1.75 percent for lower paid workers to a maximum of 5 percent on the wealthy, imposition of a tax of about one-half of 1 percent on stock and bond transfers, closing corporate tax shelters and repealing the Bush tax cuts of 2001.
There are more than 42 million uninsured Americans and another 40 million who are underinsured who would benefit from this program, according to a summary of the bill.
That summary notes that employers who now provide health-care coverage for workers pay an average of 8.5 percent of payroll for that coverage. Their costs would drop to 3.5 percent.