GOP pushes its own health care plan

Republican senators say they can help more people for less. By Martha Raffaele | Of The Associated Press Republican state senators are promoting a health care plan they say will help more people for less money than a proposed expansion of government-subsidized insurance championed by Gov. Ed Rendell -- partly through millions of dollars in tax credits. More than a half-million uninsured, low-income Pennsylvanians would obtain access to health care under the ''HealthNet PA'' plan, which would cost the state $100 million, Sen. Edwin Erickson, chairman of the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee, said Tuesday. After the Senate GOP unveiled the plan, the Rendell administration questioned whether the proposal would give the uninsured access to the full range of services they might need. The package of more than a dozen bills... [read full story]