As six Republicans in the U.S. Senate race struggle to get out of the large shadow of a single front-runner, Montgomery County businessman Joshua Rales is trying to gain visibility in a nine-man field that includes two well-known Democrats by issuing detailed position papers.
Unlike the low-budget GOP unknowns, Rales has more than $1 million in his campaign treasury, a professional staff and the detailed position papers to prove it.
“I want people to see that I?m credible,” he said. “We have the resources to get these ideas out.”
He released a health plan Thursday to decrease the number of uninsured, improve health care quality and reduce the cost of prescription drugs. Rales would require all businesses to enroll their employees in a health plan, and force employers who do not pay 8 percent of their payroll to a dedicated state fund for each employee not covered.
This sounds similar to the so-called Wal-Mart bill, the Fair Share Health Care bill that had targeted the world?s largest retailer for not spending enough on employee health benefits. The bill has drawn the ire of some of the Maryland business community and the veto of Gov. Robert Ehrlich. The legislature overrode his veto.
Rales said his proposal would apply to all employers, and not put the state at a competitive disadvantage.
“It has the business community stepping up and assuming the responsibility,” Rales said.
His plan also calls for a $1,000 tax credit for each employee for small businesses with fewer than 25 employees and taxable income of less than $250,000 per year.
“We don?t want to put the small businesses out of business,” he said.
Rales also would require all hospitals, private physicians and clinics to implement electronic health records, speed up the availability of generic drugs, and allow the government to negotiate better prices for the Medicare Part D prescription program.
Rep. Ben Cardin, the Democrat in the race leading in the polls, has spelled out a number of other detailed plans on health care coverage that he has tried to pass during the last decade in Congress.
