Healthcare

"Jordan has been a strong and consistent supporter of health system reform that would improve care, reduce costs, and employ data-driven proven public health principles."

Delegate Dan Morhaim, M.D.

Rising health insurance premiums have been hitting each of us in our pocketbooks every month. There’s no need to continue overpaying for our health insurance premiums.

We’re already paying for our uninsured through hospital emergency rooms that are required to treat everyone regardless of their ability to pay. This is the most inefficient and expensive way to treat these Marylanders.

We need to create universal access to a public option for basic health insurance coverage. Health insurers, hospitals, and drug companies have been profiting at our expense and it’s time that they foot the bill. Send me to Annapolis to save you money every month on your health insurance premiums.

1.     Healthcare Equity, Access, Reliability, and Transparency Act  (H.E.A.R.T. Act)

1.     Taking care of the vulnerable is not only morally correct; it’s fiscally responsible. We need to stop using Emergency Rooms to provide primary care to the uninsured, stop using prisons to care for the mentally ill, and start using a Public Option through universal Medicaid eligibility to cover every Marylander with whole body coverage, which will improve health outcomes and will have a positive impact on health insurance premiums for everyone else.

a.     Create a large risk pool by enrolling 500,000 public employees in this plan.

b.     Generate savings to gain economies of scale.

c.     Leverage purchasing power to negotiate down drug and medical device prices. Authorize the State to use its purchasing power to drive down prescription drug prices for Medicaid beneficiaries and State employees, bringing down prices for everyone and helping Maryland's budget far into the future.

d.    Benefit from the significantly lower administrative costs associated with publicly administrated plans.

e.     Allow Marylanders to buy into this public option at a fair price for their income level.

f.   Maryland has made great strides by charging fair prices in hospitals. We should build upon successes to guarantee that our doctors do the same. Extend the Health Services and Cost Review Commission's All Payer Single Rate Setting authority to all ambulatory and outpatient settings so as to realize the proven cost-saving and disparity-reducing benefits that have been found in the inpatient setting. 

2.     Improved Mental Health Services

1.     Since the 1980s thousands of mental healthcare facilities have shut down due to decreased funding and prisons have stepped in to fill the gap. Prisons are not designed to treat the mentally ill and they’re costing us too much; we need to provide access to improve mental health care and should expand Mental Health Courts and Drug Courts across the state. Marylanders in a mental health crisis who present no risk to others deserve the chance to get their lives back on track through these special courts.

3.     Support a Woman's Right to Choose to Have an Abortion    

                  1. Though it is currently legal to have an abortion attacks on a woman's right to choose are unceasing and we need legislators who are willing to defend what we have to prevent against the threat of future backsliding.