…keeps the doctor away?  Well, you better hope it does if you’re one of Maryland’s many uninsured.

Last week I shared my own health care woes as a single recent grad without full-time employment.  I also spoke to Chun Lee, a 20-year-old Montgomery College student from Potomac, MD who lost his coverage as soon as he graduated high school and had to spend what would have been money for his first year of tuition on an emergency appendectomy.

We all know that health care is a national issue (the 2008 presidential election has certainly shown us that) but it is also a local one.  I wanted to find out more about the state of health care here in Maryland so I spoke to Vincent DeMarco, President of Maryland Citizen’s Health Initiative, to find out.

“Maryland is one of the best states in the country in providing health care for children under 18 years of age; we do a really good job. [However] we are one of the worst states in the country in providing health care for adults over 18 years old.  That’s because of our level of coverage under the Medicaid system,” explained DeMarco.

Medicaid is a federally- and state-funded program that provides health care to low-income individuals and families.   Eligibility for the program is controlled at the state level so qualifying for Medicaid differs from state to state.  According to DeMarco, before last November, Maryland was one of the 10 worst states for providing Medicaid to adults.  A family of four making less than 10 thousand dollars a year would qualify for Medicaid for family members who are children but not for the adults living in the same household.

But Governor Martin O’Malley took the first step to correct this by signing a plan last November which will cover families (children as well as adults) who make 20 thousand or less as well as individual adults who make 116 percent of the federal poverty level (currently 12 thousand dollars).  Previous to this bill, the cut-off for individuals was a mere 38% of the federal level, which DeMarco described as “abysmally low”.  It is estimated that these measures (which have been funded by a tobacco tax of a dollar per pack of cigarettes) will provide coverage for an additional 100,000 Marylanders, bringing Maryland’s total of uninsured citizens down to 700,000, which still a huge number of people left without coverage.

While this legislation is a step forward, it doesn’t do too much to help the vulnerable demographic of recent high school and college grads who no longer qualify for aid as children but have yet to find full-time employment with benefits.   “A lot of times, people come out of college and they’ve been on either their parents’ health insurance or their college health insurance and they look for a job and can’t find a job right away that provides health care.  So that’s why such a significant portion of the uninsured is in that age group,” said DeMarco.  However, as of January of this year, Maryland followed New Jersey’s lead to try and help this segment of the population get coverage and now allows individuals to stay on their parent’s health care plans up until the age of 25.  Of course this only helps if your parents have their own health insurance and wish to keep you on their policy.

Health care is easy to take for granted if you’ve got it.  It’s also easy to overlook the issue during this election year if it’s not something that you have to do without.  I am guilty of that last statement … or I was until I found myself about to lose coverage.  But 18-29 year olds make up a significant portion of Maryland’s uninsured so we need to know where we stand now and what each candidate proposes to do about it in the next four years.  You can find a side by side comparison of each candidate’s health care plans here.  I hope you’ll check it out so that you’ll be more prepared come November, when it’s time to cast your vote.