Pennsylvania State Capitol. Photo: Shutterstock

Following is a listing of executive and legislative action from Dec. 19-20 and the week beginning Dec. 23. Both houses of the General Assembly were in recess. The Pennsylvania Senate and state House of Representatives were each scheduled to return to session Jan. 7, 2020.

Rural Health

Gov. Tom Wolf announced Dec. 26 that eight more hospitals and one additional payer have agreed to participate in the Pennsylvania Rural Health Model, aimed at ensuring the financial viability of hospitals in rural areas across Pennsylvania, and the latest step in transforming health care delivery.

The model is the first of its kind in the nation, according to a Wolf administration statement.

"I am especially pleased to see more hospitals joining this important initiative to improve their financial viability so that every Pennsylvanian has access to quality health care within a reasonable distance from home," Wolf said.

Wolf recently signed Senate Bill 314, which establishes the Rural Health Redesign Center Authority and the Pennsylvania Rural Health Redesign Center Fund. The authority and fund will administer the Pennsylvania Rural Health Model, according to the statement.

"The Rural Health Model is a transformative step that changes the financial model for hospitals in rural areas," Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine said. "This is a step that will help achieve financial stability for these facilities and aims to improve the overall health of the community."

The model is aimed at ensuring that rural hospitals, which are often an economic driver in rural areas, stay open, that jobs stay local and that sustainable access to health care is available to residents living in rural areas.

Opioid Addiction

The Wolf administration on Dec. 20 announced that the state government will allocate another $5 million in federal funding to a loan repayment program for health care practitioners providing medical and behavioral health care and treatment for substance use disorder and opioid use disorder in areas where there is high opioid-use and a shortage of health care practitioners. The program was introduced by the governor in May.

"Expanding the availability of the loan repayment program helps us continue to ensure providers committed to treating people suffering from substance and opioid use disorder get the support they need to offset education costs and focus on providing care in counties most in need," Wolf said.

"This funding helps us ensure that those affected by the crisis living in both underserved areas and areas hit particularly hard have access to primary medical and behavioral health care services to treat their disorder," Levine said.

The administration identified 30 highly impacted counties where opioid use disorder is most prevalent; 15 rural, including Armstrong, Blair, Cambria, Carbon, Crawford, Fayette, Greene, Lawrence, Mercer, Mifflin, Monroe, Perry, Schuylkill, Venango and Washington; and 15 urban, including Allegheny, Beaver, Berks, Bucks, Dauphin, Delaware, Erie, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Lehigh, Luzerne, Northampton, Philadelphia, Westmoreland and York.

While applications are not limited to these counties, practitioners in these counties could receive additional points when being considered for the loan repayment program. Applications are available through Jan. 21, 2020, the statement said.

Job Market

On Dec. 20, the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry (L&I) released its employment situation report for November 2019.

Pennsylvania's unemployment rate was up 0.1% from October to 4.3%. The national rate was down 0.1% over the month to 3.5%. The state's unemployment rate increased by 0.1% from November 2018 while the national rate was down 0.2% over the year.

Pennsylvania's civilian labor force—the estimated number of residents working or looking for work—was up 18,000 over the month to 6,534,000, according to the statement from L&I.

November was the fourth consecutive month in which employment and unemployment both increased, signaling that people are continuing to enter the workforce.

The estimated number of jobs in Pennsylvania, referred to as total nonfarm jobs, increased 9,500 over the month to a record high of 6,070,500 in November. Jobs were up in six of the 11 industry "supersectors." The largest supersector movement from October was a gain of 8,000 leisure and hospitality jobs. Education and health services and professional and business services both rose to record high levels in November.

Over the year, total nonfarm jobs in Pennsylvania were up 48,400 with gains in nine of the 11 supersectors. The largest volume change from last November among supersectors was an increase of 14,300 professional and business services jobs, which had gains in all three component sectors.

Asbestos Contamination

Following the most recent spate of school building closures in Philadelphia caused by health hazards, Pennsylvania Sen. Vincent Hughes, D-Philadelphia, called on the Wolf administration to direct state funding to address the issue of chronic underfunding of public school infrastructure across Pennsylvania.

Hughes said he had spoken with Wolf on the matter, and sent an open letter to the governor.

The conversation and letter came in the wake of two closures of elementary schools Dec. 19, when exposed asbestos was discovered throughout the building. Four other schools have experienced shutdowns over similar environmental concerns in the current school year. The closures have displaced 3,600 in Philadelphia schools.

"We were fortunate that these most recent discoveries happened during the holidays, otherwise we would be dealing with yet another situation where we have to pull our children out of school to keep them safe," Hughes said. "I have said this is a public health crisis that cannot be ignored, and the growing number of closures as a result of environmental hazards is unfortunate proof of the dire straits we face."

Pointing to school districts in Johnstown, Allentown, Clairton, Scranton and Harrisburg, Hughes said it is critical the issue be acknowledged statewide. He praised Wolf for his commitment to increasing basic education funding but said the crisis of Pennsylvania's school infrastructure cannot wait until the next budget.

Voting Machines

Auditor General Eugene DePasquale on Dec. 19 said the Department of State must continue to work with counties to improve the accuracy of Pennsylvania's voter registration records, based on an audit released by his office.

Conducted at the request of the Department of State, DePasquale's audit of the Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors (SURE) found more than 50,000 cases of potentially inaccurate voter records.

"The Department of State must work harder to verify that registration records are accurate and up-to-date," DePasquale said. "My audit team found too many instances of potentially bad data and sloppy recordkeeping that requires guidance from the state to help counties resolve issues throughout the year."

Although Pennsylvania counties own voter registration records, federal law requires the state to ensure the data held by the SURE system is accurate and secure.

DePasquale said the Department of State does not adequately document that it regularly monitors each county's work to verify data is entered correctly or that the system has enough tools to help prevent data entry errors.