The way Gary Spillane sees it, health care is a right.
And, if the Warrington resident is elected to represent the Bucks County-based 144th District in the commonwealth’s House of Representatives, he says he’ll fight for a “health care system that delivers appropriate care without bankrupting working families.
Pennsylvanians should not have to make the difficult choice between providing health care for their families or paying for food and shelter. Our state needs to plan for emergencies and the everyday needs of our communities.”
Health care is just one of the issues that Spillane, a Democrat, is passionate about.
To get to the State House, he’ll have to unseat Republican Todd Polinchock, the incumbent who has held the position since 2019, in the Nov. 3 election. The pair are vying for a two-year term.
Spillane, a Delaware County native, is a married father of two adult daughters. The Boston University graduate and his wife have lived in their Warrington home for about 25 years.
An entrepreneur, Spillane was the owner of Atlantic Building Products, until he sold the company in 2016 to Beacon Roofing Supply. He continued as an executive with Beacon for two years thereafter.
Issues that Spillane is keen to focus on if elected include environmental education and properly funded equitable public education.
He says that he supports Fair Funding PA, which he describes as a coalition working to ensure all school funding across Pennsylvania is fair, adequate and sustainable. “I support initiatives for more affordable college tuition programs and an increased focus on early education programs, vocational programs, and trade schools,” Spillane says.
The House hopeful relates that expanding green spaces and strategically preserving farmland and wooded areas, as well as increasing public trails, parks and wildlife areas, will be key priorities.
“The commonwealth must prevent any industry from polluting our ground and surface water,” he opines. “Our district has many rivers, streams, and waterways damaged by pollution and encroachment. It is our collective responsibility to ‘Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful.’”
He believes that “climate change is real. Action, both public and private, is necessary.”
Other issues he’d like to tackle include modernizing transportation systems/infrastructure; battling the opioid addiction crisis; protecting and advancing the rights of the LGBTQ community; and instituting what he calls “common sense gun reform,” such as universal background checks and a reporting requirement for lost or stolen guns.
Like all Bucks Countians, Spillane has dealt with the daily reality of fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. He believes Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration has taken the right approach to battling COVID-19, including shutdown measures that have been implemented.
“Our health care professionals, scientists, and medical scholars recommend the steps our state has taken,” Spillane asserts. “We need the measured, realistic leadership we have seen from Gov. Wolf and the Pa. Department of Health.”
He does not support HB2787, which would allow local governments control over determining the playing and audience of school sports.
“We should respond to the pandemic in a statewide way to protect the integrity of our communities,” Spillane said.
In line with his push for affordable health care, Spillane supports putting controls in place to prevent the costs of prescription drugs from continuing to soar. “Prescription drug prices are too expensive and the market requires oversight and regulation,” he says.
To properly address the dire situation many Pennsylvania businesses are facing as a result of the economic shrapnel cast by COVID-19, Spillane believes that a “private-public partnership is necessary. Inadequate planning and reserve funding for such disasters is the hallmark of Harrisburg. Failing to plan is planning to fail.”
Spillane further believes that the state should lengthen the time unemployed Pennsylvanians can be eligible for unemployment, given the ongoing hardships of the pandemic.
He also has ideas on how to solve the problem of evictions to help keep tenants off the street and property owners in cash to pay for and maintain their properties.
“Landlords and property owners should apply for aid through a fair, transparent process that funds based on need and number of tenants affected,” Spillane explains.
Calls to “defund” or restructure police agencies have grown loud in 2020. Spillane doesn’t think that’s the way to go.
“We need better support for education, health care, and housing,” he says. “The stress on police forces will lessen as these fundamental building blocks are strengthened.”
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