As the General Assembly returns to voting session next week, The PLS Reporter takes brief look at some expected action.

Hundreds of advocates from “Cover the Commonwealth” plan on packing the East Wing Rotunda Monday to call on Gov. Tom Corbett to accept Medicaid expansion wholesale instead of his Healthy PA proposal.
 
“Folks are coming because there is really a frustration about that state that we haven’t expanded Medicaid yet,” said Antoinette Kraus of the Pennsylvania Health Access Network (PHAN). PHAN is expected to participate in the rally.
 
“We are 60 days past the January 1 implementation date where we could be drawing down federal funds and covering almost a half a million Pennsylvanians,” Kraus added.
 
She stated advocates also have issues with the governor’s Healthy PA proposal, contending it cuts Medicaid benefits. “We’re worried about the new limits that will be put on Medicaid beneficiaries,” she said.

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Over the course of the past year, the House Judiciary Committee held hearings across Pennsylvania learning about how the heroin epidemic facing Pennsylvania communities can and should be addressed.

On Monday, the fourth such hearing will be held by the committee’s Subcommittee on Crime and Corrections and will give the members the opportunity learn about drug courts, see the impact the courts have made, and to determine their effectiveness.

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The Olmstead decision rendered by the US Supreme Court in 1999, which found holding an individual with disabilities in an institution without justification to be violative of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), presented a variety of implications for patients and care providers in Pennsylvania. On Monday, the House Human Services committee will hold a public hearing on the Olmstead ruling and its impact on care for the intellectually disabled in the commonwealth.

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