We had an interesting vote today on Mcare. Mcare is a public sector professional liability insurance fund set up for physicians and a few other medical professionals. This fund was established in, I think 2002, as a temporary fix for the lack of private sector insurance at affordable rates. It has been recently reported that there is excess money in this fund due to a drop in claim activity. As things go in Harrisburg, the reported excess money was quickly sought after for other purposes. The problems with this scenario are various. No one is sure how much “extra” money there really is since a careful analysis has not been done by an actuary who would look at claim trends and long term liability. If there is extra money, why not cut the income or tax coming into the account to lessen the burden on taxpayers? Lastly, since the Mcare fund was established as a temporary fix until the private sector is willing to pick up the coverage at affordable rates, there is a need to establish a long term claim reserve account to pay for claims after the Mcare fund is closed. Mike Folmer and I voted against this bill that included taking 50% of any extra money and establishing two new programs that would be essentially entitlement programs next year. Adding more government programs to a temporary funding stream is bad public policy. Mike Folmer and I were the only two votes against it in the Senate. Watch where we are with this mess several years from now. I’ll bet that the two new entitlement programs will not receive any less dollars even if the excess money is reduced. Time will tell.
- John
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