Health care's condition improves

Friday, April 24, 2009

With state revenues in decline, few saw much opportunity to further the health care expansion passed during the 2007 special session.

But legislative leaders and advocates last week lauded the progress, however small, that they were able to make this year and said they are committed to working on legislation to further expand health care in 2010.

The General Assembly made progress on two fronts, said House Health and Government Operations Chairman Peter A. Hammen, citing two bills that he and Senate Finance Chairman Thomas "Mac" Middleton (D-Charles) championed.

Lawmakers passed a Hammen-sponsored bill that will leverage a federal dollar-for-dollar match to provide more than $13 million annually for substance-abuse treatment for low-income, childless adults.

A second front, said Hammen (D-Baltimore), was a bill drafted with nonprofit health care provider CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield that would require all uninsured people to enroll in the Healthy Maryland Program.

It would replace the Maryland Health Insurance Program, administered by CareFirst, which would also administer Healthy Maryland.

Under the plan, employers with more than nine employees who do not offer a health plan would be required to contribute to the program. The bill also provides tax penalties for people who make more than three times the federal poverty guidelines but do not have health coverage.

The bill did not pass, but will be the starting point for conversations over the coming months, Hammen said.

Another failed bill, sponsored by Del. James W. Hubbard (D-Prince George's) and backed by the Maryland Citizens' Health Initiative, also would have required coverage. It would have created a health insurance pool for individuals and small businesses to use to purchase coverage and would have been funded in part by a 2 percent payroll tax increase, a political nonstarter for legislators this year.

Advocates are ready to work with the chairmen and CareFirst on the plan, said Vincent DeMarco, president of the Maryland Citizens' Health Initiative, a coalition of 617 organizations.

"So we're going to have the policy ready, and we're going to have the grass roots ready to make health care happen," he said.

ssedam@gazette.net