Health plans are in the air in... Maryland

Maryland Pushes Expansive Coverage

The most ambitious of several new plans is offered by Del. Peter A. Hammen (D-Baltimore), the health committee chairman and "would affect about a third of the state's uninsured but leave a half-million people without coverage." Its features:

• Workers earning four or five time the poverty level mandated to get insurance or pay fee (possibly as a lost tax deduction)
  
• $1 Cigarette Tax
• expand Medicaid coverage to many low-wage workers who now are eligible only if their income is 40 percent of the federal poverty level, which is set at $10,210 for an individual or $20,650 for a family of four
• subsidize small businesses to encourage them to provide coverage for their employees

And Governor O'Malley's plan? Its features (or bugs, you decide):

• No Cigarette Tax
• Small businesses would set up accounts for their workers to use tax-free dollars to buy coverage