Uninsured

Offices to close for King holiday Carroll County Government offices will be closed tomorrow for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Carroll County public libraries, public schools and senior centers also will be closed tomorrow. Northern Landfill and the Recycling Center will be open tomorrow. Trash pickup schedule changed The Westminster Department of Public Works has announced a change in trash and other pick-up for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Brush and metal for the entire city will be picked up on Tuesday.

The Help is Here Express bus tour will be at the Carroll Nonprofit Center from 2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. tomorrow at 255 Clifton Blvd., Westminster. The bus offers uninsured Americans help in finding programs that provide free or low-cost prescription medicines. The tour is part of the Partnership for Prescription Assistance, a national effort sponsored by America's pharmaceutical research companies. The bus is staffed by trained specialists who can quickly help low-income, uninsured or underinsured patients get access to more than 475 patient assistance programs, including more than 180 programs that are offered by pharmaceutical companies.

In what he called "one of the building blocks" of a proposed health care plan for uninsured residents in Howard County, Dr. Peter L. Beilenson announced yesterday the county's participation in a program to provide up to two years of low-cost coverage for 175 county residents. Kaiser Permanente will make available the health maintenance organization coverage to uninsured participants as part of the company's national "Bridge Plan," which is designed to help people left without insurance because of job loss, divorce "or some other life-changing event," said Derek A. Barnett, director of Kaiser Permanente's Community Benefit Division.

Like the thousands of Howard County residents who are without health insurance, Carol Ray cannot afford preventive health care or visits to the dentist. A mother of two teenage boys, Ray, 45, said her $25,000-a-year secretarial job at a small extermination company can cover her apartment's rent and utilities and other necessities, but not private health insurance. "I'm not looking for handouts. I'm just looking for something I can afford," Ray said about finding insurance. The Ellicott City resident said she believes she has found affordable coverage as part of the Howard County government's initiative to provide health insurance for every low-wage resident in the county.

Maryland House leaders unveiled a plan yesterday that would extend medical coverage to nearly 250,000 uninsured residents, a proposal that immediately ignited a debate over the key funding mechanism - a doubling of the state's cigarette tax to $2 a pack. The $600 million health care proposal aims to provide coverage for every child in Maryland by expanding Medicaid, while requiring that higher-income individuals and families buy insurance or pay a fee. It also would give subsidies to small businesses to provide insurance to workers and require that private insurers allow adults up to age 25 to stay on their parents' plan.

Last week, I argued that President Bush's Iraq war has demolished the foundations upon which the Republican Party had, until 2006, built a national majority. Paradoxically, the war has nevertheless been a huge victory for conservatism. To explain this paradox, we begin with William F. Buckley's famous definition of conservatism as "to stand athwart history, yelling, `Stop!'" Setting aside the dismal implications of this mantra for conservatives - a life where change is inherently bad, new ideas and peoples are threatening, social and technological advances must be resisted, and the future always frightens - conservatism's first principle is that slower is better, particularly in matters of governance.

Is President Bush a liar who hates children? That's what many of his critics now are asking. Why else, they say, would he refuse to sign a bill providing health insurance to poor kids? Specifically, the president has vetoed a bill expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which was designed to provide health coverage to lower-income children. One nationally syndicated columnist went so far as to call Mr. Bush's rationale in vetoing the bill a "pack of flat-out lies."

What vice will we seek to ban next? With the approval of the city-wide smoking ban, the City Council undoubtedly feels it has scored a major coup that puts Baltimore alongside Chicago, Los Angeles and New York among the "trendy elite" of cities that have jumped on the anti-smoking bandwagon ("Snuffed," editorial, Feb. 28). While tobacco smoke may truly pose significant health risks, and this ban will be viewed by many people as progressive and positive, I think most of us may be missing the forest for the trees on this issue.

As criticism mounts against HMOs and the number of uninsured continues to rise, a group of Maryland leaders called yesterday for sweeping health reform in the state.The new group, called the Maryland Citizens' Health Initiative, released poll results revealing strong dissatisfaction with health maintenance organizations and a belief that the uninsured need health coverage."Our present health care system is an embarrassment," declared Dr. Alfred Sommer, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

People without health insurance in Maryland tend to be young, unemployed or self-employed, and a member of a minority group, according to preliminary conclusions from a study presented yesterday at the inaugural meeting of the Maryland Health Care Commission.The preliminary data, from 1996 through 1997, also turned up a few surprises:Of the uninsured in Maryland, about 15 percent come from households with incomes over $50,000.The uninsured are twice as likely as those with insurance not to have seen a doctor or received preventive care.

WASHINGTON - -As a Senate committee prepares to vote today on a closely watched plan to overhaul health insurance, senior Democrats are increasingly squaring off against key industry groups over how many people will ultimately be covered by the bill. The showdown, fueled by estimates that as many 17 million people would remain uninsured under the legislation, now threatens to shadow the health debate as party leaders prepare to bring bills to the floors of the House and Senate in coming weeks.

Catherine Lynn A memorial service will be held at a later time and will be private. You may contact family for details. In lieu of flowers donations may be made to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Attn: Gift Management Services, 5005 LBJ Freeway, Suite 250, Dallas Tx 75244 or donorinquiry Komen.org. You may also go online www.nationalbreastcancer.org/gift/ to donate a mammogram for uninsured women.

In the wake of severe funding cuts, a Maryland health care program that aids uninsured residents will curtail its operations this month. The University of Maryland's fleet of traveling health clinics won't make stops anymore in Glen Burnie, Cumberland and in a few locations on the lower Eastern Shore. In all, the budget for the School of Nursing's Wellmobile will be cut in half. "We're going to work to design a program that fits within the budget constraints," said Wellmobile's director, Susan Antol, who's still not sure of all the changes.

Howard County's highly praised attempt to provide low-cost, preventive medical care for uninsured residents is off to a slower than expected start. Only about 200 people have joined since enrollment in Healthy Howard began last Oct. 1, county health officer Dr. Peter L. Beilenson said, falling short of the admittedly ambitious goal he set of signing up 2,000 members in the program's first year. "Enrollment is not where I hoped it would be," Beilenson admitted under critical questioning at a recent county council budget hearing.

This year's General Assembly session ended on a cool and dreary note. Perhaps it was befitting a dismal 90 days in Annapolis as the worst recession in a generation or three caused lawmakers to turn timid on numerous fronts. Remember when then-Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. told the business community some years ago to "get dangerous" with legislators? He should have recommended a rise in unemployment rates. That seemed to capture the attention of senators and delegates as powerfully as any super-lobbyist with an expense account.

Officials in Howard County are showing that it is possible to significantly improve the quality of health care available to uninsured residents at a relatively low price - as little as $50 a month for a participant. The county's new Healthy Howard experiment is not a Cadillac service. Care is available only within the county, and users can't pick who provides it. But the program does coach participants to lead healthier lifestyles and helps diagnose and treat medical issues before they lead to emergency room crises.

Peter Beilenson appears to believe that the best defense is a good offense. Appearing before the Howard County Council last week, the health officer called Healthy Howard's initial enrollment period "a tremendous success" and vigorously defended the Ulman administration's signature program before the council's lone critic, Fulton Republican Greg Fox, could say anything. The program seeks to extend access to health services to uninsured county residents. Liddy Garcia-Bunuel, director of Healthy Howard Inc., the nonprofit created to run the program, accompanied Beilenson, along with two other program staffers.

How workable are the presidential candidates' health reform plans? The strategies of Sen. John McCain, a Republican, and Sen. Barack Obama, a Democrat, are different in their approaches to solving problems and their potential effects on voters. To choose wisely, you have to do some homework. To help, here are summaries of their proposals, health care statistics, and online resources that provide more information and analyze how well those proposals might work. Barack Obama would ... * Require employers (some small businesses would be exempt or subsidized)

Gov. Martin O'Malley and Baltimore health advocates announced the launch yesterday of a $150,000 advertising campaign designed to let uninsured Baltimoreans know that thousands more of them are eligible for Medicaid. Under a law that went into effect in July, parents with annual incomes up to 116 percent of federal poverty guidelines, or about $20,500 for a family of three, are now eligible for Medicaid. Before the new guidelines were passed, only parents making less than 40 percent of poverty were eligible.

As Howard County health officials prepare to launch an ambitious health access program for uninsured residents this fall, they have obtained funding for an innovative electronic application system designed to simplify what can be a complex and tedious paperwork process. County officials learned recently that a state grant for the computer-based system, considered an important element of the program, has been approved. The system is used for similar government programs in 10 California counties, and in some parts of Arizona and Indiana.