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May 31, 2022
Wes Moore releases comprehensive plan to build a world-class healthcare system for all Marylanders
The Moore-Miller plan outlines a cohesive response to inequities, accessibility and affordability associated with a basic human right to reliable care
Health care professionals and elected officials show support for the plan, focusing on the critical need for Moore’s leadership and unique perspective on health care
BALTIMORE (May 31, 2022) – With more than 257,000 Marylanders lacking health care coverage and nearly 20 percent navigating medical debt, Democratic candidate for Governor Wes Moore and his running mate former Del. Aruna Miller today released a plan to build a healthy Maryland today by ensuring that every Marylander has access to high-quality, affordable health care.
Read the Healthy Maryland Today one-pager »
Across Maryland, significant disparities in adequacy of health coverage persist, while the COVID-19 pandemic further revealed hidden and visible gaps in health care. For many, even with coverage, the cost of health care is often too high, leading to deferred needed care or forgoing medically-necessary prescription drugs. And it’s worse for many marginalized communities who have fallen into those widening cracks. While Maryland is home to some of the best hospitals, medical research institutions and health care facilities in the entire world, that care is not easily accessible to all and too costly for many others.
“Health care is a basic human right that every Marylander deserves,” said Wes Moore, who learned this early when at the age of three he saw his father pass away from a treatable disease. “Families should not have to choose between living expenses and important, needed care. And yet, this remains the case for too many Marylanders. The Moore-Miller administration will ensure that our state and health care institutions foster a system that improves health and wellbeing, and where everyone has access to affordable care.”
To address the widening gaps in accessibility and affordability, the Moore-Miller’s Healthy Maryland Today health care plan will ensure every Marylander has access to health care coverage by streamlining enrollment in Medicaid and increasing subsidies for individuals purchasing health care through the exchange.
Maryland is a vastly diverse state, with urban, rural, and suburban communities, each with similar, yet distinct needs. To meet those needs, the Moore-Miller plan will tackle the disparities in rural health care by expanding telehealth and remote patient monitoring, improve care for individuals with disabilities, and support seniors’ ability to access home health care services to age in place.
The plan also protects and advances reproductive health care by working to enshrine the right to an abortion into Maryland’s constitution and ensuring new funding for the training of health care workers that will allow them to provide abortion services is released. And, it will safeguard against stigma associated with mental illness by supporting mental, emotional, and behavioral health for all through an increase in the number of community-based care centers, by equitably growing the behavioral health workforce, and ensuring that we are better serving Marylanders experiencing serious mental illness.
“The trends are alarming and the response is lagging for our most vulnerable populations,” added Aruna Miller. “We must act with urgency to deliver high-quality and affordable care across the state, for children and families, our seniors and our veterans, for women and our disabled communities. And we must ensure that the ability to pay is not the deciding factor in anyone’s access to care.”
Key to the plan’s success is recognition of the critical role health care professionals, elected leaders, and families play in how systems provide effective and affordable care.
“Everyone deserves access to affordable, quality health care,” said Dr. Raymond Scalettar, former chair of the American Medical Association Board of Trustees. “The Affordable Care Act is the most important health care legislation since Medicare, uncovering the cracks in our system that prohibit access to affordable and reliable care, prescription drugs, and coverage. Now more than ever, state governments must act in the best interest of its citizens. The Moore-Miller plan maps out a way forward for all Marylanders to achieve optimal health built on a foundation of personal experience, legislative expertise, and a vision elevates health care as a basic human right for all, not a privilege.”
“The COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be more than a public health crisis, but it has also revealed the cracks in our healthcare system that disproportionately affect those already marginalized in our communities,” added Baltimore City Councilmember Phylicia Porter (District 10). “As a state with world-class facilities, we must now become the state that ensures that every Marylander can access that level of care, regardless of ability to pay. This is a basic human right, not a luxury afforded to some. The Moore-Miller plan tackles our inequities by approaching health care in terms of need, not means. I fully support their plan and their vision, and trust that they have the leadership and experience to deliver.”
“For too long, the stigma attached to mental and behavioral health has caused harm and cost lives in families all across Maryland,” Judy Harris and Norm Ornstein, Maryland parents who have suffered loss due to mental illness. “In the Moore-Miller plan to build a better and more affordable healthcare system for all, we are inspired by the level of detail to elevate access to mental health services through community-based care centers and wraparound services, an equitable workforce, implement policies and adopt positions that reflect modern brain science, and a commitment to better serve Marylanders experiencing serious mental illness. These concrete solutions bring parity to care and visibility to mental, behavioral and emotional disorders.”
The Moore-Miller plan to create a healthier Maryland today is the latest in a series of comprehensive policy frameworks by the Moore-Miller campaign, including a cradle to career education plan, a statewide plan for public safety and criminal justice, a transportation mobility plan, a plan to unlock economic opportunity for Maryland’s Black families, an economic plan to increase work, wages, and wealth for every family in Maryland, an action plan to support Marylanders during the surge of COVID cases and a plan to build a cleaner, more prosperous Maryland.
In his bid to become the next Governor of Maryland, Wes Moore has earned the support of U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (MD-5), former Governor and former Prince George’s County Executive Parris Glendening; former Democratic nominee for Governor Ben Jealous; Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks; Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman; Former Baltimore County Executive Don Mohler; Former Baltimore County Executive Jim Smith; Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Aisha Braveboy; Sen. Guy Guzzone (District 13); Sen. Antonio Hayes (District 40); Sen. Cheryl Kagan (District 17); Sen. Delores Kelley (District 10); Sen. Susan Lee (District 16); Sen. Obie Patterson (District 26); Former Sen. Nathaniel McFadden (District 45); Del. Marlon Amprey (District 40); Del. Vanessa Atterbeary (District 13); Del. Ben Barnes (District 21); Del. Kumar Barve (District 17); Del. Lisa Belcastro (District 11); Del. Regina Boyce (District 43); Del. Chanel Branch (District 45); Del. Ben Brooks (District 10); Del. Frank Conaway, Jr. (District 40); Del. Debra Davis (District 28); Del. Jessica Feldmark (District 13); Del. Terri Hill (District 12); Speaker Pro Tem Del. Sheree Sample-Hughes (District 37A); Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates Adrienne Jones (District 10); Del. Rachel Jones (District 27B); Del. Anne Kaiser (District 14); Del. Cheryl Landis (District 23B); Majority Leader Del. Eric Luedtke (District 14); Del. Maggie McIntosh (District 43); Del. Edith Patterson (District 28); Del. Roxane Prettyman (District 44A); Del. Mike Rogers (District 32); Del. Sandy Rosenberg (District 41); Del. Emily Shetty (District 18); Del. Geraldine Valentino-Smith (District 23A); Del. and Baltimore City Delegation Chair Stephanie Smith (District 45); Del. Melissa Wells (District 40); Del. Nicole Williams (District 22); Former Del. Gene Counihan (District 15); Baltimore County Councilmember Cathy Bevins (District 6); University Park Mayor-Elect Joel Biermann; Bowie Mayor Pro Tem & Councilmember Adrian Boafo; Baltimore City Councilmember John Bullock (District 9); Hagerstown City Councilmember Tiara Burnett; Morningside Mayor Bennard Cann; Charles County Commissioner Thomasina Coates (District 2); Baltimore City Councilmember Zeke Cohen (District 1); Baltimore City Councilmember Mark Conway (District 4); Baltimore City Councilmember Eric Costello (District 11); Bowie City Councilmember Michael Esteve (District 11); Gaithersburg Councilmember Lisa Henderson; Montgomery County Councilmember Will Jawando (At Large); Baltimore County Council Chair and Councilmember Julian Jones (District 4); Hagerstown Mayor Emily Keller; Hagerstown City Councilmember Tekesha Martinez; Prince George’s County Councilmember Johnathan Medlock (District 6); Former Gaithersburg Councilmember Yvette Monroe; Pocomoke City Councilmember Todd Nock (District 4); Baltimore City Councilmember Phylicia Porter (District 10); Baltimore County Councilmember Tom Quirk (District 1); Baltimore City Councilmember Odette Ramos (District 14); Somerset Mayor Jeffrey Slavin; Riverdale Park Councilmember Richard Smith (Ward 1); Laurel Councilmember Brencis Smith (Ward 2); Baltimore City Councilmember Robert Stokes (District 12); Baltimore City Councilmember James Torrence (District 7); Forest Heights Mayor Calvin Washington; former Maryland Democratic Party chairs Michael Cryor and Susie Turnbull; Former Chair of the Montgomery County Planning Board Royce Hanson; The Baltimore Fire Officers Union Local 964; Collective PAC, one of the nation’s largest organizations working to build Black representation in government; Impact, a leading national organization supporting the Indian American and South Asian community; Ironworkers Local #5, a progressive union representing over 1,000 ironworkers; The Maryland State Education Association; The Columbia Democratic Club; and VoteVetsPAC, one of the top veterans advocacy organizations in the country.
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