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The report said that over 11 percent of women in the state do not have health insurance, while roughly one in five black women and one in five Hispanic women lack it. Furthermore, about 25 percent of Pennsylvania women do not get prenatal care in the first three months of pregnancy and the number of women who die giving birth is about nine in every 100,000.
Ms. Cooper said that the best way to better the situation is to support Mr. Rendell's Cover All Pennsylvanians (CAP) plan, which would allow Pennsylvania employers to acquire state-provided insurance by charging them and their employees premiums and paying the rest of the cost from increased tobacco taxes and money from a state medical malpractice insurance fund.
The policy aide conceded that a system that assumed more state responsibility for providing health care would deprive consumers of some flexibility.
"It's really the trade-off," she said.
Some analysts have disputed the notion that enacting the governor's plan would make a significant positive difference in helping uninsured residents acquire medical coverage. A Commonwealth Foundation study estimates that the state's uninsured population will grow to over 1 million by 2012 while CAP enrollees will likely number less than 200,000 by that time.
All of the speakers at the discussion, held at Westborough Country Club, suggested they favored some form of state assistance to eliminate the dearth of insurance, but audience member Lani Frank, who has managed the campaign of state House Rep. Barbara McIlvaine-Smith (D-Chester), voiced concern that the governor's plan did not go far enough.
"This is a boondoggle for the insurance industry," she said of CAP.
Ms. Frank supports a plan Ms. McIlvaine-Smith is co-sponsoring called the Family and Business Health Care Security Act, a single-payer system that would ostensibly guarantee every Pennsylvanian health-care coverage.
Bradley Vasoli can be reached at bvasoli@thebulletin.us.
