Howard County?s plan to expand access to health care to uninsured residents is not universal health insurance, which health officials say is preferred but complicated.
“It is providing a range of services that is pretty comprehensive,” Howard Health Officer Dr. Peter Beilenson said of Howard?s plan, details of which will be released next month.
Providing health insurance for Howard?s 18,000 to 20,000 uninsured residents would be too costly, as the county would need a reserve capital to pay for the coverage, and federal laws would complicate the efforts, he said.
“This is as far as a local jurisdiction should go,” Beilenson said, adding universal insurance should be done on a state level.
San Francisco health officials ran into those barriers before reworking existing health care funds to bring health care to the uninsured, which Beilenson said was similar to Howard?s plan.
Under Healthy San Francisco, residents pay a fee based on a sliding scale and receive preventative care, said Robert Menezes, program spokesman.
The effort began a couple years ago as a push for universal health insurance before turning into more of a safety net.
“Then it became doable. Insurance is cost prohibitive,” Menezes said.
Insurance is a better option, he said.
Health access programs often aren?t long-term funded and don?t address skyrocketing health care costs, said Joel Miller, of the National Coalition on Health Care, a nonprofit advocating health care for all.
“There needs to be more effort to expand health insurance coverage rather than health care services,” he said.
