Dear Maryland state legislators,
Make it happen. Pass real health care reform this year, so that the more than 800,000 people in this state who pay out of pocket ? or force the rest of us to pay for them in emergency rooms ? can afford it.
Gov. Martin O?Malley and Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown made working for the “common good” and “Maryland?s working families” chief among their concerns during their campaign. No other issue meets those criteria so fully.
Many proposals wait to be debated. But the only ones worth considering rid workers from the shackles of employer-based health insurance. The landmark legislation passed by Massachusetts last year does that and would serve as a great starting point for discussion.
Why? Today?s workers in Maryland, like those throughout the country, do not hold lifetime jobs. Many do not even hold five-year-long jobs or one-year-long jobs. That means they lose health insurance when they switch positions, at least for a short period of time.
Those people are a big chunk of the uninsured.
More importantly, most people work for small businesses, which increasingly cannot afford to pay for health care for their workers in Maryland. About 40 percent of small businesses offer health care ? down 13 percent since 1999. A big part of that reason is state law mandating that all insurance must include 26 different types of coverage, including infertility treatments and special food, even if workers would not choose those options for themselves or their families. If employers could instead contribute a portion of the cost of insurance and let workers decide which plan to choose, thousands more people would be able to afford a plan for themselves and their families. That offers the opportunity to radically expand basic health care coverage.
A key component of the plan must include making employer and worker payments toward health care tax-free. Otherwise it would put a huge burden on those companies which cannot afford to offer it currently, and it would continue to prevent individuals from purchasing insurance on their own.
State Sen. E.J. Pipkin, R-District 36, has authored legislation to make health insurance available, affordable and portable. His “exchange” would spread risk across the state instead of within companies, and let individuals own health insurance in the same way we own auto or home insurance. It is exactly the kind of structural reform Maryland citizens need ? and the kind that will attract business.
Don?t waste time on piecemeal proposals like the so-called “Wal-Mart bill” debated in past sessions or one currently gaining steam to raise the cigarette tax in exchange for covering a portion of the state?suninsured or underinsured.
We the People are counting on you to do the hard work of making health care work for all the citizens of the state.
