States from coast to coast are seriously contemplating some form of universal health insurance, not just for children but for adults as well.
Gov. Rendell, stumping across Pennsylvania this week to promote his plan for affordable insurance, is a prime example. Expanded coverage for the uninsured is high on the agenda in more than a dozen state capitals and is being considered in at least a dozen more. Four already have it.
The trend can be seen across the country:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, is negotiating with Democratic legislative leaders in hopes of passing bill to expand coverage to California's 6.8 million uninsured residents.
A Colorado commission established last year is due to issue recommendations on how to expand health insurance to the uninsured by January.
Massachusetts is implementing a 2006 law that requires every resident to have health insurance and providing subsidies based on a sliding scale of income.
"There is clearly broad interest across the country and in many states in developing broad strategies to address the problem of the uninsured," said Jennifer Tolbert, a policy analyst with the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured in Washington.
Sid Smith says he is a good example of the need for change. Before his first heart attack in 1995, Smith, who lives in West Philadelphia, trained disabled people to work as janitors.
But the damage to his heart left him unable to work; that, in turn, ended his health insurance. Now 58 and the survivor of two more heart attacks, Smith has been found to have heart failure, prostate cancer, diabetes, and high blood pressure.
Social Security disability income barely covers his rent, utilities and food, he said, and he depends on a city health center to manage his diseases and provide the 15 drugs he takes. "The care I get from the health center, I know it's not the best in the world, but they do their damnedest," Smith said.
Traveling across Pennsylvania, Rendell says he has met many Sid Smiths this week. He is midway through a five-day "tour to insure" - State College and Johnstown today, Scranton and Wilkes-Barre tomorrow - seeking citizen support for his plan. He talks on his bus with small groups of uninsured residents at each stop.
In Warren County yesterday, a middle-aged man told the governor that he had built an addition to his house and given up his job - and his employer-provided health insurance - to care for his twin brother.
