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WILKES-BARRE — Dozens filled Rodano’s in Wilkes-Barre on Tuesday night for a discussion on health care hosted by state Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski.
“My goal here today is to present a new idea and I think the timing is right because nobody else has this idea, nobody else has a solution because they haven’t brought it forward. So now’s the time to get the people involved,” said Pashinski, a Democrat..
Pashinski’s plan is to create a national health care task force to look into the state of health care for one year.
“We can do that by making sure we freeze the system at this point. Don’t increase the cost. Fund the exchanges so that people are on it don’t get thrown off, that’s inhumane. We do that for a period of one year. Fix it the right way and not go through these imaginations of trying to come up with these crazy ideas of repeal and replace with no real replacement.”
The U.S. Senate recently failed to pass a “skinny” repeal of Obamacare, which would have repealed the mandatory requirement that most people get health insurance and suspended a requirement for large companies to provide coverage to employees.
Republican State Rep. Tarah Toohil, Butler Township, says that repeal of the Affordable Care Act will not happen without an established replacement, and both parties need to work together to come to a consensus that works for everyone.
“We’re asking Washington to work together. It’s a bipartisan issue and that moving forward we can look at items that people do want to keep, which a lot of people agree, they want their children covered up until age 26, they want to make sure that people with pre-existing health conditions are able to get and keep insurance. But right now people also agree that it’s just unsustainable and it’s unaffordable,” Toohil said.
She says a possible option would leave the big decisions in the states’ hands.
“If you would allow the states to have their own exchange, do their own marketplace. In Pennsylvania, we could choose that you as a buyer would be able to shop around a little bit better than you are right now, and hopefully that would drive the cost down and drive premiums down.”