Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley recently signed a bill into law extending health insurance coverage to 120,000 residents. The law will expand Medicaid and provide grants for small businesses to help their employees get insurance, reported the Washington Times.
Medicaid, the federal health care program for the poor, will be extended to adult residents without dependent children under the new law. Income eligibility will also be increased to 116 percent of the federal poverty level.
Small businesses will receive state grants through a $30 million program created by the passed legislation.
The new law will cost the state around $283 million a year. And it"s still up in the air where that money is going to come from. Maryland lawmakers have proposed to legalize slot machine gambling, which would fund the expansion. But residents have to approve the gambling proposal in a vote next November.
“[I]f the [slot machine] referendum fails, we’ll get an alternative source of funding, ” said Maryland House Speaker Michael E. Busch.
The expansion law isn’t the first Maryland initiative to get more people insured. In Howard County, there was a push to get more residents insured by reaching out to people who were eligible for state health care programs but weren’t enrolled.