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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 5, 2007

A Capitol Perspective
A column by State Senator Pat Browne
16th Senatorial District

MCARE Still Needed to Protect Health Care in PA

Where would you go in an emergency if your local hospital was closed? Who would deliver your child if all of the OB-GYNs were gone? What would you do if a loved one needed emergency brain surgery and there were no neurosurgeons left in Pennsylvania?

Those were questions that the Commonwealth was facing not so many years ago as medical malpractice insurance premiums were skyrocketing and increased costs were taking a dramatic toll on the number of health care providers in Pennsylvania – especially those in critical specialties that inherently carry higher patient risk levels.

Not only were experienced physicians closing their offices or moving out of state, but the high cost of medical malpractice insurance coverage was also pushing out new medical practitioners. From 2002 to 2004, the percentage of resident physicians who trained in Pennsylvania and then stayed in the state to practice fell from 24 percent to 8 percent.

Five years ago, in response to those needs, the Legislature created the Medical Care Availability and Reduction of Error, or MCARE, program to assist physicians in paying a portion of their medical malpractice insurance premiums. The fund helps pay a portion of the $500,000 in MCARE fund coverage that the state requires each doctor to secure, in addition to the $500,000 in primary coverage from the private marketplace. 

MCARE assistance is financed primarily by a 25-cent tax on packs of cigarettes and a surcharge on traffic citations.

As it stands now, the authorization for this important program will sunset on December 31, 2007. However, we are taking steps to protect this important safety net for Pennsylvania’s health care providers as the Senate recently approved Senate Bill 1137, which will reauthorize the MCARE program until December 31, 2008.

SB 1137 also provides significant reforms to the program as well. Thanks to the improving medical liability market and the stabilization of premiums, due in large measure to the reforms contained in the MCARE Act signed into law by Governor Mark Schweiker in 2002, premium costs have been reduced to a level approximately $115 million below its $220 million annual allocation.

SB 1137 establishes basic, common sense restrictions on how dollars not needed for the abatement can be used:

• 50 percent would be placed in an escrow account to reduce the unfunded liability of the MCARE fund;
• 25 percent would be used to establish a medical safety automation fund (electronic medical records) for grants to health care providers;
• 25 percent would be used for the fund to support the reduction of health care associated infections.

With these and other new reforms in place, we can begin looking toward a future where the MCARE program may no longer be needed. However, until then, it is essential that we act to reauthorize this important program and protect the quality and accessibility of health care in Pennsylvania.

State Senator Pat Browne represents the 16th Senatorial District and serves as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.