Public Health - Healthy Maryland Program - Establishment

Bill Sponsor: Delegate Acevero

Committee: Health and Government Operations Committee

Organization Submitting:   Lower Shore Progressive Caucus

Person Submitting:  Jared Schablein, Chair  

Position: FAVORABLE

I am submitting this testimony in favor of HB0025 on behalf of the Lower Shore Progressive Caucus, which aims to establish the Healthy Maryland Program as a public corporation and a unit of State government to provide comprehensive universal single-payer healthcare services for all residents of the State by January 1, 2025.

As Chair of the Lower Shore Progressive Caucus, we believe that healthcare is a basic human right, and it is essential that all Marylanders have the care they need to stay healthy and thrive. Unfortunately, the current healthcare system is not serving everyone equally, and too many individuals and families are unable to afford necessary medical treatment, prescription medications, or preventative care.

The Healthy Maryland Program will ensure that all Maryland residents have comprehensive healthcare services, regardless of their income or pre-existing medical conditions. By eliminating the financial barriers to healthcare, this program will help prevent chronic diseases, reduce healthcare costs, and improve the overall health and well-being of our community.

We support the provisions outlined in the bill, including those related to eligibility, participation by and payments to health care providers, benefits, payroll premiums, funding, and collective negotiations with health care providers. We believe that these provisions will ensure that the program is affordable, sustainable, and able to deliver high-quality healthcare services to all Maryland residents.

We urge you to give a favorable report on HB0025 and take an essential step towards creating a more equitable and just society for all Marylanders. 

TESTIMONY FOR SB 73

General Assembly - Special Election to Fill a Vacancy in Office

Bill Sponsor: Senator Lam

Committee: Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs

Organization Submitting: Lower Shore Progressive Caucus

Person Submitting: Jared Schablein

Position: FAVORABLE

I am submitting this testimony in favor of HB 73 on behalf of the Lower Shore Progressive Caucus. The Caucus is a political and activist organization on the Eastern Shore, unaffiliated with any political party, committed to empowering working people by building a Progressive Movement.

The State of Maryland, like the United States of America as a whole, loves to talk about how we are a stalwart of Democracy. However, our current system that allows the Governor to appoint based on the central committee, which currently holds the seat with no voter input, is extraordinarily undemocratic and goes against our values as a society. Not only is this system undemocratic it is also a major headache that has caused some horrible press for our state in the past. Who could forget in late 2012, when controversy engulfed then-Gov. Martin O'Malley when he refused to appoint the Prince George's County Democratic Central Committee's nominee for a vacant seat due to the nominee's criminal past. This issue would result in a court case, and in early 2013 O'Malley appointed someone else. This situation should have never occurred because the voters should have decided who was the replacement in the first place. 

The situation has gotten so bad that over one-fifth of the legislature is currently appointed. This is not an attack on the qualification of those appointed but the pure absurdity of how much power we have taken away from the people. For these reasons, the Lower Shore Progressive Caucus supports this bill and recommends a FAVORABLE report in committee.

TESTIMONY FOR HB 172

Bill Sponsor: Delegate Luedtke

Committee: Ways and Means

Organization Submitting: Lower Shore Progressive Caucus

Person Submitting: Sam Harvey

Position: FAVORABLE

I am submitting this testimony in favor of HB 172 on behalf of the Lower Shore Progressive Caucus. The Caucus is a political and activist organization on the Eastern Shore, unaffiliated with any political party, committed to empowering working people by building a Progressive Movement.

Lower Shore Progressive Caucus members appreciate the heritage of labor movement activists, the gains dearly bought, tenuously preserved. There is a sense of besiegement. Many workers are already worn out by the expectation that they should put the job ahead of every other aspect of their lives – family, personal fulfillment, rest – health. They must surely feel further fatigued by a lack of solidarity, from those beguiled by the idea that the extraction of maximum profit from labor will somehow, someday, prove to benefit them, members of the working class themselves.

The past several decades provides a picture in stark contrast to this dream of a capitalistic utopia, where the largesse of our economic plutocrats remains stubbornly unforthcoming. Rather, workers have endured years of slow wage growth – especially galling in the light of soaring inequality.

It therefore seems mysterious that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 removed union members’ ability to deduct union dues from their taxable income – while simultaneously allowing businesses to deduct the cost of hiring union-avoidance consultants from their taxable profits. It is incredible that moneyed, empowered, interests have been able to enact policies that effectively discourage collective bargaining. The ability to freely associate with one’s fellow citizens, to collectively choose individuals from among that number to represent the group’s interest, should rank among the most sacred and protected of rights. Unfortunately, here we see the exact opposite.

Policy like this leaves average taxpayers effectively subsidizing union-busting efforts. Yet research suggests our growing inequality brings with it a host of social problems – lower levels of happiness and health – even lower economic growth. Nothing can be wrong with working people talking to each other and uniting behind collective decisions toward the betterment of their lives. And via that collective bargaining, unions reduce income inequality - unequivocally.

HB 172 recognizes and rewards the good that unions do and seeks to reflect that in the tax code. For this reason, the Lower Shore Progressive Caucus supports this bill and recommends a FAVORABLE report in committee.

TESTIMONY FOR HB0470 -- Commission on Universal Healthcare

Bill Sponsor: Delegate Ruth

Committee: Health and Governmental Operations

Organization Submitting: Lower Shore Progressive Caucus

Person Submitting: Amber Green

Position: FAVORABLE

I am submitting this testimony in favor of HB0470 on behalf of the Lower Shore Progressive Caucus.
The Caucus is a political and activist organization on the Eastern Shore, unaffiliated with any
political party, committed to empowering working people by building a Progressive movement on the
Lower Eastern Shore.

As a black mother who gave birth to a black son in Wicomico County, it was not my intention to place him in danger of not receiving equitable healthcare and to possibly lose his life because of how his black parents were being treated in one of the largest hospitals in rural Maryland eastern shore. Hours after my son celebrated his 1-year-old birthday, we rushed him to the hospital for a rising fever and breathing concerns. He was sent home not once, not twice, but three times and we were told to continue to give him breathing treatments. It took his pediatrician to call the hospital and demand he stay overnight for observation. My son ended up being hospitalized for 2 weeks and needed to be emergency transferred to Children's Hospital in Washington, DC where he had to have surgery to treat a severe case of complicated pneumonia.

In Wicomico County, the black infant mortality rate is two times greater than of white infant mortality rate. Black mothers do not have the same opportunity to protect and nurture their children due to the lack of choice based on income. To receive affordable healthcare services such as birth control, annual checkups and to receive those services and not be treated any differently than anyone else, I have to personally drive 40 minutes outside of my city and county of residence. I have to stress that I am a black mother living on the rural eastern shore, an area that is coming to grips with its racial history but still has large disparities when it comes to race and healthcare; we must do better as a people and as a state.

HB 0470 is a commonsense bill that will help address these issues and find a way to ensure every person of color on the Eastern Shore has the health insurance they need and the care they deserve. For that reason, the Lower Shore Progressive Caucus urges legislators to stand with rural black
mothers by supporting this bill and giving it a FAVORABLE report in committee

HB638 Public Safety - Untraceable and Undetectable Firearms

Bill Sponsor: Delegate Lesley Lopez

Committee: Judiciary

Organization Submitting:   Lower Shore Progressive Caucus

Person Submitting:  Dr. Nicole Hollywood, LSPC   

Position: FAVORABLE

I am submitting this testimony in favor of HB638 on behalf of the Lower Shore Progressive Caucus. The Caucus is a political and activist organization on the Eastern Shore, unaffiliated with any political party, committed to empowering working people by building a Progressive movement on the Lower Eastern Shore. 

State and federal gun laws traditionally apply to fully assembled firearms and the part of the gun that includes the firing mechanism, also known as the receiver. These laws typically do not apply to “unfinished” frames or receivers, also known as “80% receivers”. These nearly completed firearms are known as ghost guns. A ghost gun is, simply put, a self-assembled firearm made from either 3D printed components or building blocks easily acquired from the World Wide Web or from individuals in the form of DIY gun kits. These building blocks are readily available and unregulated and are not produced by a federally licensed manufacturer or importer.

The mounting threat of ghost guns is the most eminent gun safety problem in the United States. Unregulated, not serialized, and often undetectable by a magnetometer, ghost guns present an easy means for prohibited purchasers to evade gun laws and access firearms.

The threat of ghost guns is rising rapidly. By early 2020, reports indicated that more than 40% of guns involved in criminal activity that were recovered by the ATF were ghost guns and those number are only increasing. For example, in Baltimore, the number of ghost guns retrieved by police tripled from 2019 to 2020. 

When guns are recovered from a crime scene the serial number is used to engage in tracing. During this process a firearm is traced through the chain of custody to the point of its first retail sale. According to the National Tracing Center of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (2019) 450,000 trace requests were processed in 2019 and more than seven million traces have been conducted since 1988. Ghost guns however, are untraceable and because they are untraceable they are now the firearms of choice for organized gangs.

The Lower Shore Progressive Caucus recognizes the dangers posed by ghost guns. HB638 would alter the definition of a regulated firearm to include a certain unfinished frame or receiver, authorize a person to continue to possess these firearms after January 2022 provided they are marked with a unique serial number, prohibit a person from acquiring new ghost guns after January 2022, and establish penalties for violation.

The Lower Shore Progressive Caucus supports this bill and recommends a FAVORABLE report in committee.