These comments were excerpted from a speech by Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley to a plenary session of an annual healthcare conference hosted by FamiliesUSA.
Our country is now poised through the Affordable Care Act to help millions of American families and small businesses and their employees access high quality, affordable health care coverage. This isn’t going to happen by itself. This is not simple. If it were simple, someone would have accomplished it years ago. This is complicated, but it is not beyond our grasp [..]
We are ready in Maryland to turn the corner on the healthcare costs that have been sapping our productivity as a people and as a nation. Sapping the productivity of our businesses. Taking from them the ability to reinvest in their own plants and their own opportunities and their own markets. Costs that force moms and dads to choose between health care and paying for groceries, or tuition, or school supplies, heat, rent, mortgage payments. These are the big decisions that happen in the most important place – the kitchen table of every family home.
In Maryland we believe we are gaining a competitive advantage by being an early implementer [of health care reform]. Last year we had the best year of new job creation that we’ve had since the recession hit [..] Why is it that at the same time we’ve cut 7.5 billion from our state budget, we’re increasing the ranks of those who are covered by healthcare so very, very dramatically? It’s because there is an historic truth – not a Democratic truth or a Republican truth – but an American truth and an economic truth. In order to create jobs, a modern economy requires modern investments. Read the rest of this entry »