Pennsylvania: Looking for a better solution than Obamacare?

Look no further than Altoona, PA. As reported in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Dr. Zane Gates runs a clinic there for Altoona's working poor that "serves more than 3,500 people who earn too much to qualify for medical assistance but cannot scrape together enough money for health insurance."

How can he do this?

The clinic, Partnering for Health Services, subsists through an association with Altoona Regional Health System, which absorbs and writes off approximately $2.3 million more in costs per year for laboratory tests, X-rays and medication.

Additionally,

He is also developing a hospital-only insurance plan that would give his free clinic patients access to a preventive wellness program and three emergency room visits each year, for which they would pay less than $100 a month.

"If you have a heart attack, or you break a leg, you get your gall bladder out -- all that stuff, it's all covered," said Dr. Gates. "No co-pays, no pre-existing conditions, anything."

The plan would save money for both the clinic's patients and Altoona Regional Health System, said Cloyd Beers, executive director of the Altoona Regional Partnership for a Healthy Community.

Compare that to the Obama plan that was recently signed into law which at best is just another unfunded mandate for the already distressed states. According to the chief deputy director for California's health programs, Obamacare's expansion of medicaid will cost his state at least an additional $2 - 3 Billion annually.

Perhaps a new massive social program isn't the answer after all.