Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that “[o]f all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane.”
I believe that every Marylander deserves quality, affordable healthcare and will continue to make that my mission in Annapolis. I have served as the Chairman to the Health and Social Services Subcommittee on Appropriations, taking all I have learned over eight years of policy work and combined with my health financing experience over the last six as Chairman, I continue improving our State’s healthcare budgeting and financing. Given the unique way Maryland handles the budget between the Governor and the state legislature, my committee and subcommittee have the difficult task of trying to find funding for important state departments and programs.
My goals over the next four years are to:
1. Continue to expand health care coverage to all Marylanders. Both working in the short term to provide lower costs of insurance through the Affordable Care Act and in the long-term, fighting to implement strategies to one day see Universal Healthcare as a right and a reality.
2. Support the Development Delayed and Behavioral Health communities through appropriate resources and facilities. No one who needs these services should sit for years on waiting lists or not be afforded the treatment for Substance Use Disorder that they desperately need and ask for.
3. Make sure seniors’ healthcare needs are available. I have worked to, and will continue, make sure that resources are available to provide the best possible care for seniors. Working to keep them in their homes and independent for as long as they are wiling and able., by improving home health care and home nursing staffing, and expanding adult medical day care facilities. If a long term care facilities is warranted, I will make sure that we in Maryland have the best in the State with caring, competent staff and facilities that make seniors feel at home.