Ten Random PA Policy Points

Often when debating or discussing politics and policy, facts are tossed aside in favor of more emotional arguments. Even worse, when one side of a legitimate but spirited debate falters, it has somehow become acceptable to either refuse to accept the facts as accurate.

Others strive to find flaws in an effort to have two wrongs make a right. By way of experimentation, here are 10 totally unrelated facts about issues we deal with in Pennsylvania government. Let’s see what happens …

1. Pennsylvania’s annual total coal production of 66 million tons (mostly from 300 active surface mines and 35 underground mines) ranks 4^th among coal producing states. With a coal reserve base of 27 billion tons remaining in Pennsylvania, coal supplies will be available for at least the next 250 years.

2. A new Pew Research Center study found that for the first time since at least World War II, middle class families finished the first decade of the 21^st century poorer and with lower incomes than they had 10 years earlier. In 2011, 51 percent of the U.S. was defined as middle class (annual incomes between $39,000 to $118,000 for a three-person household), down from 61 percent in the early 1970s.

3. Approximately 50,000 emergency medical services personnel and more than 1,000 licensed ground and air ambulance services respond to more than one million patients each year in Pennsylvania’s EMS delivery system.

4. Women currently pay $1 billion more than men each year for the same health plans in the individual market because of gender rating that enables insurers to charge women premiums up to 150 percent higher than men for identical benefits. The Affordable Care Act will make gender rating illegal starting in 2014.

5. A recent Keystone Research Center report found that Pennsylvania was ranked 12^th nationally in job growth by percentage in 2010, but Pennsylvania’s ranking has fallen to 36^th over the past year (May 2011-May 2012) and 39^th over the past six months (December 2011-May 2012).

6. The National Republican Lawyers Association has found 340 cases of voter fraud over a 10-year period in the United States, which breaks down to almost 0.7 cases per state per year. This total also includes registration fraud.

7. With much of the crop-producing states currently experiencing the worst drought in more than 50 years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that food prices will go up by 3 percent-4 percent next year on top of expected inflation between 2.5 percent-3.5 percent.

8. Pennsylvania has approximately 2,653 shopping centers consisting of 279.2 million square feet of space and employing 520,300 people.

9. The Pennsylvania Prison Society estimates that 100,000 children in Pennsylvania have a parent behind bars.

10. The American Association of School Administrators has noted that there is a 95/5 dilemma. While 95 percent of the public school systems in the United States are successful, public perception and governmental policy are being driven by the 5 percent of systems that are not successful.