As an emergency physician, I treated patients before and after the introduction of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Before the ACA, I routinely saw dozens of uninsured patients every single day. They were uninsured not because they didn’t want insurance or believed they didn’t need it, but because they couldn’t afford it. I treated Sarah, a 47-year old nurse’s aide, who was diagnosed with breast cancer that had spread throughout her body. Had she been insured, her cancer could have been detected earlier, and she might have been cured. Instead, Sarah died six months after her diagnosis, leaving her three young children without their mother.

The ACA has enabled 400,000 Marylanders to become insured. We have made so much progress to improve health in our state, and we cannot afford to roll back these gains. Every day, residents call me at the Baltimore City Health Department asking about what’s going to happen to them. They are scared they will be denied insurance coverage because of pre-existing conditions like migraines, diabetes, or depression. They are terrified of going bankrupt because one car accident or sudden illness will land them in the hospital. They are frightened of returning to the days before the ACA, when families made daily tradeoffs between food and medicine, rent and the hospital bill.

This week, I testified before the Maryland General Assembly in favor of legislation that would protect key provisions of the ACA. Senate Bill 690/House Bill 726 (Basic Health Plan) will help ensure access to affordable health coverage for working people who are eligible for public programs and who cannot afford private insurance. Senate Bill 1011/House Bill 1167 (Protect Maryland Health Care Act 2018) provides ways for residents without health insurance to make a down payment on a coverage plan through the individual market. These bills will stabilize insurance markets in our state and ensure that we can protect healthcare access for thousands of Marylanders. Our team also provided support in favor of HB879 (Advanced Practice Dental Hygiene), which will help address the dental care shortage in Baltimore for Medicaid eligible patients by expanding the number of providers capable of performing advanced procedures under the supervision of a dentist.

I thank our legislators for sponsoring these life-saving bills. I am grateful to work with colleagues who believe that health care is a human right, and who work tirelessly every day to address disparities in access to care. 

Leana Wen, M.D., M.Sc.

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