Greetings,

Healthy Howard Huge Success

As you all know, two years ago Howard County Executive Ken Ulman and Howard County Health Commissioner (and Health Care For All Founder and Board Member) Peter Beilenson launched the Healthy Howard Health Plan to guarantee access to quality, affordable health care for their county's uninsured.  Our former Executive Director and still Board Member Glenn Schneider is also a key part of the team that put this program together.

Over the past two years, Healthy Howard has found medical homes for 15% of the county's uninsured (that's over 3000 county residents).  That's an amazing accomplishment for any single county to achieve. 

We can learn a lot from Howard County's experience.  When Healthy Howard held its first set of enrollment nights, a large number of the uninsured who showed up to enroll were actually eligible for state programs like Medicaid, PAC, and the Children's Health Program.  None of these residents had any idea that they might already be eligible for state coverage.  And instead of enrolling them in Healthy Howard to quickly run up their enrollment numbers, staff rightly helped these residents into the state programs for which they were eligible.  

In recent weeks, one critic of the program has cited this major accomplishment as a failure of the program to attract members.  To the contrary, it's a sign of the program's success. 

Most of those eligible for state health programs would have not known about these programs if it were not for the Healthy Howard Plan. They would still be uninsured today.  Instead, they have a medical home.  They can get their preventive screenings, they can see their doctor, and they can do so without the fear of financial ruin.  Those who do not qualify for state health programs are enrolled in a local program that has received well-deserved national attention, including two segments on national NPR in one of which Dr. Beilenson very ably described the program and how it can be a model for national health care reform.  Patients enrolled in Healthy Howard receive extensive preventive care services, specialty care, hospital care debt-forgiveness, discounted prescription drugs and even health coaching to help them keep healthy all for about $50 a month.    

We commend County Executive Ulman and his team for all they are doing for the people of Howard County and we look forward to incorporating into our Maryland Health Care for All! Plan the lessons they learn from implementing Healthy Howard.

To learn more about Healthy Howard, go to http://www.healthyhowardplan.org

News on Summer Health Care for All Happenings

It has been a busy few months here at Health Care for All.  We saw some of you last week at the one year anniversary of the implementation of the Medicaid Expansion, and it was a great celebration.  If you were not there we had a lively town hall forum in addition to the announcement that over 44,000 Marylanders have now enrolled in the Medicaid program - a tremendous success!  We might have some news for you soon regarding a new enrollment project that we are very excited about, so stay tuned.

On other fronts, we have been picking up endorsements like crazy.  In just nine short months we are now at over 925 organizations from every corner of the state that have endorsed the new Health Care for All plan.  This is a fantastic accomplishment but are still looking for new partners everyday.  If you know an organization that you are involved with that has not endorsed the new plan, get in touch with us at the office, or just click here, fill out the resolution and get it back to us today.

We also wanted to make sure everyone saw two great pieces from the Baltimore Sun that were run recently.  The first is a great OP/ED written by local Chambers of Commerce talking about why businesses should endorse our proposal that can be seen by clicking here, and an Editorial by the Baltimore Sun praising the Medicaid Expansion and its economic value seen by clicking here.

Enjoy the Rest of Summer

Before we know it this summer will already be over, so we hope all of you enjoy the rest of it with style.  Enjoy your vacations, spending time with friends and family, and know that we are closely watching what is going on in Washington and Annapolis.  Things have really gotten exciting lately, there are tons of ideas being thrown around, and progress is coming.  That being said, we thank all of you so much for all of your work to get us where we are today.  925 organizations signed on and 44,000 folks enrolled - WOW, what a year... 

Matt, Vinny, Rosanna, Suzanne, Brooke, Caitlin and all of our wonderful interns, consultants, and volunteers