Healthcare Town Hall Tonight
Local lawmakers and healthcare professionals host town hall on #1 issue on voters' minds
A Democratic-led town hall on healthcare reform couldn’t come at a better time. Scheduled for tonight at Frederick Community College, the event dovetails with yesterday’s announcement that 75,000 Marylanders will be paying as much as 80 percent more for insurance premiums in 2018. The Baltimore Sun reported on Oct. 25 that after Pres. Donald Trump pulled federal insurance subsidies from the Affordable Healthcare exchange earlier this month, Maryland legislators scrambled to find a fix.
State Democrats took Gov. Larry Hogan (R) to task for not joining state lawmakers in asking Congress for a bipartisan solution to rocketing premiums. “Governor Hogan has refused to speak out against Republican sabotage of health care and he has surrounded himself with people who applaud the sabotage efforts. Now his Administration is asking Marylanders to foot the bill,” Maryland Democratic Party Chair Kathleen Matthews said at mddems.org. “Governor Hogan has not only failed to provide Marylanders with a plan to lower their health insurance premiums, it is clear that he is a part of the problem.”
Hogan supported continuing the monthly $8 million federal payouts, but didn’t join other lawmakers in asking Congress to restore the subsidies, according to an Oct. 19 article in The Baltimore Sun, because he said the bill could change.
Tonight’s Healthcare Town Hall is sponsored by Democratic state delegates Karen Lewis Young (D-Dist.3A) and Carol Krimm (D-Dist. 3A), FCC’s Phi Theta Kappa, and the United Political Club of FCC. Four speakers, Del. Krimm, Del. Lewis Young, Dr. Barbara Brookmyer, and Heather Forsyth of the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange, will give five minute presentations, and take written questions from the audience.
“We know that many, many citizens have fears, concerns and anxiety about healthcare and we really feel we need to address them,” said Del. Lewis Young, pictured right. “We will have information you might not get every day that we want citizens to know.”
The event is nonpartisan, and although sponsored primarily by Democrats, with a guest appearance by County Executive Jan Gardner (D), Lewis Young said the town hall is not about “Republican bashing.”
Del. Krimm, pictured left, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, will focus on budgeting issues surrounding healthcare, how much the state spends, how much it has grown, and how spending will be allocated. She will also touch on the cost of Medicaid expansion and the loss of $2.1 billion in federal money.
“We cannot pick that up on our own in the state budget,” Lewis Young said.
As a member of the Health and Government Operations Committee, Del. Lewis Young will discuss the top three or four healthcare bills passed last year, she said, including legislation on prescription price gouging; a composite of opiod laws, and the decision to fund Maryland Planned Parenthood if the feds strip funding.
A new commission was set up, Lewis Young said, to address how the state should respond to cuts in federal insurance subsidies.
Dr. Barbara Brookmyer, Frederick County Health Officer, will talk about the county’s health department services, and its challenges and opportunities in helping those without accessible healthcare. The Maryland Health Benefit Exchange manages Maryland Healthcare Connection. Heather Forsyth, director of consumer assistance programs and business integration, will talk about what rate changes mean for those enrolled in the ACA through the Maryland Healthcare Connection, and the basics of enrollment.
The MHC website says that many of those enrolled will receive financial assistance to cover the rate increase, “seeing little or no rise in monthly costs.”
Although the insurance tax credit will increase for those qualified for federally subsidized policies, those who make too much money to qualify for subsidies will get hit the hardest with rate hikes, according to news reports.
The audience will submit questions in writing to so that presenters can get to more questions during the two-hour town hall than they could by letting people stand and ask their questions, Lewis Young said.
The issue of healthcare ranks equal to economic issues as the number one topic on peoples’ minds, according to national surveys. That, and the urgency of the need for healthcare reform, prompted the idea of a town hall, Lewis Young said.
Meanwhile, in another part of the state
Maryland was the first state to take legislative action to preserve Planned Parenthood should the federal government pull funding. One of those who wants to see the organization lose its federal dollars is the sole Republican in Maryland’s congressional delegation, Rep. Andy Harris, representing Maryland’s first district. Harris, a three-term congressman, is a member of the House Freedom Caucus.
At a recent forum on healthcare, Susan Buyer, the co-founder of Indivisible Worcester, on the Eastern Shore, approached Rep. Harris about a conflict in his political views. Indivisible is a national anti-Trump activist group with local branches throughout the country.
Harris was the featured speaker in the UMES School of Pharmacy and Health Professions' "Dr. Nicholas R. Blanchard Healthcare Speaker Series" on the topic, "The State of the Nation's Healthcare" on September 18.
Buyer said in an email that “Throughout his speech, which was mostly a series of power points detailing health care costs, he spoke of the need to get the federal government out of health care. So afterwards, during the reception, I asked him whether keeping the government out of the relationship between patients and health care providers extended to women making difficult and intimate decisions about their lives.”
You can see the answer in the video.
Indivisible Worcester MD was founded in January 2017 and has 300 members. “We are patriotic, Constitutional, and peaceful,” Buyer said.
“Our focus is on making sure that our members of Congress, Senator Cardin, Senator Van Hollen, and Congressman Harris, are, in fact, speaking for us. We’ve identified key opportunity areas that just a handful of local constituents can use to great effect: town halls, other local events, district office visits, coordinated phone calls, and letters to the editor,” she said.
Frederick Progressives Also Sought Audience with Harris
Beth Landry, a member of Frederick County Progressives, took part in statewide efforts to persuade Rep. Harris and Gov. Hogan to oppose cuts to the ACA. Landry, an RN, said she was advocating for her patients by seeking an audience with Harris after his Sept. 18 UMES presentation.
“Rep. Harris – either by direct communication or through members of his staff – doesn’t seem to answer questions directly, questions we asked several times,” Landry said.
She and members of Progressive Maryland and other social justice groups traveled to Capitol Hill a week later to visit 55 members of Congress, including Harris, and to take part in a sit-in.
Landry’s group met with Harris’ staff, as Harris himself was in a Freedom Caucus meeting, to ask him not to vote for cuts to healthcare or social welfare programs.
“One thing that we found out was a positive, is that Rep. Harris reauthorized CHIP in 2015,” Landry said.
CHIP is a federal healthcare insurance program for low-income children.
