Mark B. Cohen - Democratic Chair of Human Services Committee

Democratic Chair of Human Services Committee

He was appointed by Democratic Leader Frank Dermody as Democratic (Minority) Chair of the "key" Human Services Committee in December, 2010, where he worked closely with Republican (Majority) Chair Gene DiGirolamo. One of the DiGirolamo-Cohen bills sought to enact tougher regulation of for-profit methadone clinics. Cohen opposed the opening of for-profit methadone clinics near his legislative district. A second DiGirolamo-Cohen bill establishes the Pharmaceutical Accountability Monitoring System in order to detect pharmaceutical drug abuse and substance use disorders by people with addiction to them.

Both Cohen and DiGirolamo worked to see that human services programs were adequately funded in a period of budget cutting. Both actively participated in the Department of Public Welfare's Appropriations Committee Budget Hearing. The Chairman of the House Democratic Policy Committee hailed Cohen as "a longtime advocate of human services programs and a leader to restore funding in this year's spending plan."

DiGiralamo and Cohen held a hearing on House Bill 272 to ease treatments of Lyme Disease, of which Cohen was a co-sponsor. The chances of enacting this legislation were limited by the opposition of the Medical Society of the State of Pennsylvania due to its concerns about antibiotic resistance and the legislation's (1) guaranteeing of insurance company reimbursement of long-term use of antibiotic prescriptions and (2) requiring a high level of representation for the International Lyme And Associated Diseases Society on the newly created task force on Lyme disease and related diseases.

Both DiGirolamo and Cohen publicly opposed Governor Tom Corbett's refusal to start up the newly established Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs as required by a law they had both actively supported, of which DiGirolamo was prime sponsor. On November 1, 2011, they held a public hearing in Harrisburg in which they both confronted Corbett Administration anti-Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs advocates. "Almost every crime that's committed in our local communities is related to drug use," DiGirolamo said. "We need leadership on this issue and I am going to fight you on this. Instead of building prisons, we could be closing them." Agreeing with DiGirolamo, Cohen added "Governor Corbett cannot pick and which laws he wants to implement." Cohen also said the governor was under pressure from insurance companies not wanting to cover drug and alocohol programs in their policies and existing bureaucrats locked in a "turf war," which the governor's office "flatly denied."

An editorial in The Intelligencer (Doylestown,Pennsylvania) noted the concerns of both DiGirolamo and Cohen, concluding "What we find troubling is that the governor is ignoring an act of the Legislature that was signed into law by his predecessor. Whether Corbett thinks the idea of a Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs has merit or not, most of the members of both the House and the Senate thought it did and presumably still do, since all but a few are still serving. Like a number of lawmakers, we wonder how the governor can get away with this. Besides that, there is significant sentiment outside of government--from social workers and others who see the tragedy of drug and alcohol abuse on a daily basis--that a new department could improve the way Pennsylvania addresses the problem...."