Health Care

Before sunrise Monday, Kevin and Shelley Taylor set out from their Millersville home to a new employment center for the Maryland Live! Casino, a slots parlor next to the Arundel Mills mall seeking workers for 1,500 jobs. Having tracked the progress of what will be the state's largest casino, the Taylors believe the facility could provide opportunity for their five-member family. Though Kevin Taylor has a job, he wants a better-paying one. And Shelley Taylor has been out of work for several months.

The Sun believes Baltimore's new archbishop, William E. Lori, will be challenged by "far more pressing" social concerns than those posed by Barack Obama's health care mandate ("A new archbishop," May 20). I think not. Under the new law, health insurance plans covering employees of Catholic institutions must include provisions not only for birth control but for sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs as well - all contrary to Catholic teaching. As such, it amounts to nothing less than the administration's attempt to bend the church to its will.

The story of a 24-year-old Georgia graduate student fighting a flesh-eating disease has prompted a microbiologist with the Veterans Affairs Maryland Health Care System to speak out about the infection. Aimee Copeland lost most of her left leg after the flesh-eating bacteria necrotizing faciitis is believed to have entered a cut on her leg, according to the Associated Press, which reports she may also have to have her fingers amputated. The waterborne bacteria Aeromonas hydrophila is believed to have caused the infection.

As Catholic institutions across the country sue the Obama administration over new health insurance rules, Baltimore's new archbishop is scheduled to speak in Washington this week at a conference focusing on "Rising Threats to American Religious Freedom. " Archbishop William E. Lori, who was installed this month as the 16th archbishop of Baltimore, said he would discuss "the roots of our own nation's tradition of respect for religious freedom" — including the roles of Marylanders John Carroll, the first archbishop of Baltimore, and his cousin Charles Carroll, the only Roman Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Of 348 Evening Sun readers and other callers to SUNDIAL yesterday, 271, or 77 percent believed that there should be guaranteed health care for everyone in the United States, and 77, or 22 percent disagreed.The American Medical Association has endorsed reforming the nation's health-care system to guarantee health care for everyone. The AMA suggested that government and business working together might supply health insurance for all."It's Your Call" represents a sampling of opinions from certain segments of the community, but it is not balanced demographically, as a scientific public opinion poll would be.

From: Beverly B. ByronU.S. Congress6th DistrictWashingtonI would like to thank all of those who attended the health-care town meeting in Hagerstown on Jan. 14.The turnout of some 200 people last week as compared to the very few who attended my four health-care forums in 1990 impressively demonstrates that health care has taken its place on our national agenda.Nearly 250 members of Congress held town meetings that night to hear from their constituents on where we go from here on health care.

Washington.--Critics who complain that President Clinton's health-care plan has ''too much government'' are onto something, but they don't have it exactly right. The problem isn't too much government; it's too much politics. The Clinton plan will force society to make explicitly, through the political system, decisions on painful questions like limiting choice and rationing care that will be made in any event.Alternative plans will make these same decisions covertly, and possibly less sensibly.

It's virtually a given these days that the uppermost personal concern of the vast majority of Americans, other than the obvious one of earning a regular paycheck, is affordable health care. Only the wealthiest can escape the haunting fear that a single family illness, even a common one like cancer, can in a matter of weeks turn relative economic security into a life doomed to penury.In retrospect it's easy to see what happened: Thirty years ago, a tacit compact was reached that government would pay for the health care of the poor (through Medicaid)

When it comes to finding an answer to the nation's health-care problem, Maryland is indeed "America in miniature." The same three-prolonged debate taking place in Congress is also being argued in Annapolis' State House. And like their counterparts in Washington, Maryland legislators are far from reaching a consensus.Still, the three days of public hearings in the House Economic Matters Committee last week proved an eye-opener for a number of lawmakers and made it clear that only one of the three plans discussed has any chance of advancing in this legislative session.

The health-care delivery industries are given a respite. Last autumn, until the Clinton health-care bill failed, they were up in arms, guarding their interests from harm. Now the storm has departed as rapidly as it came.Since the conservative Republican congressional victory in November, health care has gone off the screen. The Republicans are talking about which programs to abolish, not what to create.Don't be fooled. The health-care issue is not dead. Small bits of it are wriggling. The rest is dormant -- a virus festering unseen, liable to erupt at some unexpected time.

If the slogan "Maryland is America in miniature" is still relevant, it spells trouble for us by today's standards. What a double whammy. Our president and our governor. They are both two of a kind, and that means trouble for most of us. Talk about fiscal irresponsibility, these two should be the poster boy twins! Forget about the political affiliation, but look at the identical behavior. While the Obama-led Congress has yet to submit a budget, our boy, Gov. martin O'Malley has orchestrated a cliff hanging thriller that he hopes will make him look like he's the second coming, like that other guy we know!

Marylanders spent $44.5 billion on personal health care in 2010 as costs in the state continued to outpace the nation, according to a new report. Spending on services including hospital care, prescription drugs and long-term care increased 3.5 percent compared to 2009, according to the report by The Maryland Health Care Commission. On average a Maryland resident spent $7,698 on healthcare in 2010, 9 percent higher than the national average of $7,066. The biggest chunk of money in Maryland was spent on hospital care, which accounted for one-third of spending.

Edwin Charles Saiontz, a highly-regarded health care expert and co-founder of SHR Associates Inc., died Thursday of multiple organ failure at his Boynton Beach, Fla., home. The longtime Pikesville resident was 77. The son of a lawyer and a homemaker, Edwin Charles Saiontz, who was known as Ed, was born in Glen Rock, Pa., and raised in Woodmoor. After graduating from Forest Park High School in 1953, he worked for Nation-Wide Check Corp. in Glen Burnie while studying at night at Baltimore Junior College and later at the University of Baltimore, where he earned a bachelor's degree in business.

The Supreme Court's ruling on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, expected in June, will determine the future for countless Americans. Health care reform debates have elevated the plight of millions of uninsured Americans to the national consciousness. However, the physician workforce that would be needed to care for millions of newly insured people deserves equal attention. There is a growing shortage of primary care physicians in the U.S., and it has been forecasted for decades.

Americans in almost every state are finding it harder to get basic health services, according to a report released today by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Access to healthcare from 2000 to 2010 has declined in 42 states, especially for the uninsured the study found. Nationally, the share of adults who have not been able to meet medical needs because they can't afford care rose 6 percentage point to 18.7 percent. In Maryland, the number of people who found it too expensive to get care increased 5.1 percentage in the decade to 15.4 percent.

The economic and political tumult in Europe has continued this week with anti-incumbent votes in France and Greece as well as signs of disaffection in Italy, Great Britain and Germany. The electorate is angry, and the election results have raised renewed concerns about whether Europe's most debt-burdened countries will stick with their quest toward fiscal discipline. On this side of the Atlantic, it's tempting to view the uproar in purely parochial terms - out of concern that the U.S. economy will continue to be encumbered by the eurozone crisis.

For White House spin doctors, Donna Shalala's testimony that 40 percent of the American people will pay more for medical insurance under the Clinton health care plan must have been as welcome as a dose of castor oil. That the Health and Human Services secretary was being candid and merely reiterating, with minor changes, estimates presented earlier by Hillary Rodham Clinton was beside the point. Her message clearly upstaged Bill Clinton just as he came to Baltimore Thursday to begin a year-long selling job on the massive legislative proposal he had given Congress the day before.

There's a knock-down, drag-out fight going on in the hallways of Annapolis over a health-care proposal that epitomizes the kinds of agonizing decisions individuals in our society have to make. Proponents of the bill say it gives patients the absolute right to choose a health-care provider. Opponents say the bill will demolish cost-containment efforts and add hundreds of millions of dollars to the cost of obtaining health care.In an ideal setting, the proponents' argument would triumph. Americans have been spoiled by a health-care system that has enabled them to pick and choose their physicians at will without much thought about paying for it. After all, insurance paid nearly all the bill.

With the Supreme Court reviewing the Affordable Care Act (ACA), there is no shortage of legal analysis to handicap the decision. But unfortunately, not enough attention has been paid to the real value this law provides to millions of American families and businesses. As governor, I have heard from families unable to purchase coverage at any price because of pre-existing illness, from seniors forced to choose between medications and energy bills and from businesses required to drop employee coverage to stay afloat.

Maryland is slated to receive almost $15 million in the next round of funding from the federal health care reform law to upgrade and expand community health centers, mostly in the Baltimore area. Health centers are a main provider of primary care services for disadvantaged patients in urban and rural areas around the country. The Affordable Care Act included $11 billion over five years to expand them. This round will send $726 million to centers nationwide. "With the new infusion of funds, the centers will be better able to meet growing demand for services," said Mary Wakefield, administrator of the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, in a conference call with reporters.