What is the greatest health care challenge facing Maryland today, and how do you plan to address it?
See answer to Question #7.
Maryland’s hospitals operate under a unique contract with the federal government that promotes community, equity, and value. It also contributes significantly to Maryland's economy. How do you plan to support the continued success of the Maryland Model?
Although I am not on the HGO committee, everything I have heard about the Maryland Model that give Maryland certain waivers in exchange for other obligations we've committed to is working, and puts Maryland's health care ahead of most other states. I plan to continue to support this Model.
Maryland is experiencing a shortage of health care practitioners, especially nurses, that we project will worsen in the years ahead. How do you plan to address the immediate crisis and what will you do to make sure we have a robust and sustainable health care workforce pipeline?
Most of the problems with health care in this country and state are, in general, the result of legislative regulations that are adopted in the belief that they will "fix" things. Often, they have the opposite effect. Here is an example The legislature recently passed a law requiring all public K-12 schools to provide a private duty nurse at school for any children with epilepsy who attends that school. Because of the nursing shortage, Baltimore City has been unable to comply. Because the school does not have a private duty nurse in the school, several young students have not been allowed to attend school. It IS important for students with epilepsy to be adequately cared for while they are at school. But by enacting the rigid requirement that every school must have a nurse on duty in the school, the schools had no recourse to find alternate solutions when the nursing shortage prevented them from "following the law."
How would you increase availability of and access to health care for Marylanders?
You will find my answers to these questions have a similar refrain. Review and waive or eliminate regulations that look to achieving perfection in the delivery of health care. The phrase, "perfect is the enemy of good." During the pandemic, many regulations were waived -- because they impeded the ability of the healthcare community to provide care for Marylanders in a safe and TIMELY way.
What policies will you pursue to improve health for all Marylanders? Please also consider the social determinants of health?
Remove regulations that, while seemingly positive, often tend to generate unexpected negative outcomes. Additionally, there has been a strong push over the last decade or so to make public schools the repository of all of the social determinants of health and welfare. Public schools are not equipped to do so and the effort often supplants the actual reason kids go to school -- to learn. However, there is a resource that the Maryland legislature has adamantly and deliberately refused to use: school choice. Good charter schools that are allowed the appropriate flexibility often provide many of the social needs of low income children as part of a unique curriculum. Although the City has over 30 charter schools, few are given the freedom to innovate which is the singular benefit of such schools. Maryland desperately needs to reform our charter school law to take it from the worst such law in the country to one of the best.
How do you plan to address consumers' growing exposure to health care costs, such as high deductible health plans and rising prescription drug prices in Maryland?
Again, every time the legislature passes a law that requires additional effort on the part of the industry being regulated, costs go up incrementally. We never see the relationship because each step is minimal. The nature of lawsuits in America can also contribute to the cost increases as does normal inflation. But today, however, the country is being subjected to high levels of inflation and hyperinflation causing the severe, even unprecedented rise in costs for health. are and everything else. While there are a number of factors that contribute to low and moderate inflation, there is only one cause of the type of hyperinflation we are currently experiencing, and that is the persistent excessive growth in the supply of money. The federal government is on a spending spree well beyond what our taxes, etc. can pay for. Rather than limiting spending, the feds just print more money. When all of this "free money" becomes available without an equal increase in goods and services, it buys less, so we have to spend more. There is not a lot that Maryland can do about that.
Maryland’s worsening medical liability climate, as noted in a recent independent report, threatens access to, and affordability of, health care services in Maryland. Plaintiffs’ attorneys typically take 40% of a medical malpractice judgment. Do you support limiting attorneys’ fees so that the affected individuals can receive more of their settlement or judgment? What additional reforms would you support that balance supporting individuals and families harmed by medical malpractice with ensuring continued access to services in a community?
There are four actions I would endorse:
1. Pass a No-Fault Birth Injury Fund bill like HB377 that was introduced in 2016 and at least one other session.
2. Yes, I do support limiting attorney's fees either by lowering the percentage permitted or establishing some sort of numerical cap with a sliding scale
3. I would revise the Maryland tort law to require a losing plaintiff be responsible for court costs and make other changes in tort law that were included in California's 1975 Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act. The Independent Actuarial Analysis of Maryland's Hospital Medical Liability Climate Final Report estimated the effect of applying the provisions of California's law would decrease the Medical Professional Liability (MPL) costs in Maryland by 23%
What are your priorities should you be elected, not confined to health care?
Education. I would work toward expanding and supporting school choices giving parents access to information about and the ability to put their child into the best education environmental for their child -- particularly in order to give low-income parents the same ability to improve their child's education as higher income parents who can afford private options. We would dramatically increase the transparency of the insular public education monopoly. Parents would have access to the educational philosophies, curricula, plans, and practices of each school and educators would be encouraged to involve parents to the extent the parents were willing to be involved. Finally, we need to empower teachers, allowing them more flexibility to "teach" rather than to judge every action by the response of the administration rather than by the response of their students.