By Vincent DeMarco, President, Maryland Citizens’ Health Initiative Education Fund,Inc.
Unlike other states where the fight over federal health care reform continues, leaders in Maryland are figuring out how to make comprehensive health care a reality here at home. We want to make sure that Maryland gets every federal dollar it can under the new legislation – both for the sake of public health and for the well-being of our economy.
We’ve got a lot going for us: Most importantly, we have leaders who have a solid record of making health care coverage a priority. We passed one of the nation’s largest Medicaid expansions since 2007 by extending adult eligibility from 40% of the federal poverty level to 116% of the federal poverty level (i.e. a family of four earning about $25,000 can qualify for free coverage for everyone in the family.) This moved Maryland from 44th to 16th in the nation for providing free coverage to low income adults and insured more than 63,000 Marylanders. Partly as a result of this expansion to parents and partly as a result of renewed efforts to reach children, over 85,000 previously eligible but un-enrolled children also got health care coverage in our state since January of 2007. This was not an easy investment for our state amid the economic recession. But fortunately, our legislature understood that to have a resilient state, we need to have a healthy state; in Maryland, families who are coping with losing their jobs don’t have to worry about losing their health insurance too.
We know that federal funding will be essential to sustain this program and to continue to make sure that every Marylander has quality, affordable health care coverage. Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley created a coordinating council to advise the state and ensure swift, strategic and comprehensive implementation of federal health care reform to fully benefit our state and our citizens. The Coordinating Council has already met, and is currently collecting comments and questions from the public involved to ensure transparency and facilitate consumer feedback for excellent program design.
On June 10, the council met to develop a preliminary list of critical issues, establish a feasible work plan, and hear from a panel of stakeholders to learn what they perceive as critical decisions for the council to make or priority topics for the council to consider. We are participating in these meetings and encourage others who are interested in this process to participate as well. The next meeting is July 1 from 9AM-1PM in Annapolis
We think Maryland is a great model for other states to follow. Here’s a link to our letter to the coordinating council highlighting specific initiatives we support to ensure affordability, strengthen public health insurance programs, promote awareness about new coverage opportunities and bolster our health care workforce. We thank the Georgetown Center for Children and Families for the opportunity to share this great news with you and welcome your feedback from the field in other states as well!
Editor’s Note: The views expressed by Guest Bloggers do not necessarily reflect the views of the Center for Children and Families.