STATEMENT OF RICHARD FALKNOR
MARYLAND TAXPAYERS ASSOCIATION, INC.
TO THE SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE
IN SUPPORT OF SB528, SB 529, and SB530
CONSUMER HEALTH OPEN INSURANCE COVERAGE

Good Afternoon. I am Richard Falknor, executive vice president of the Maryland Taxpayers Association, Inc., and I am accompanied by physicians Christopher Unger and Ron Uscinski.

MTA strongly urges your committee to approve Senator E. J. Pipkin's Consumer Health Open Insurance Coverage (CHOICE) reform package of SB528, SB529, and SB530.

MTA believes that the CHOICE approach, with its emphasis on encouraging consumer ownership of health insurance (thus advancing portability) and consumer choice among competing plans, as well as Maryland income tax credits for those who obtain CHOICE coverage, is the Free State's best hope to halt the accelerating slide into so-called single-payer or, more accurately, state-run medicine. Canada's example of the questionable quality and accessibility of such medicine should send a chill to all Maryland health consumers.

Many members of your committee will recall past proposals for single-payer plans in Maryland which generally included a prosperity-devastating Maryland tax burden. MTA warned taxpayers as early as November 2000:

The proposed [The Maryland Citizens Health Initiative (MCHI) single-payer proposal] plan would have disastrous effects on the costs and quality of health care in the State of Maryland. According to a report by the independent Lewin firm, which analyzed the complex proposal for MCHI, "[t]he impact of the single-payer plan on employer health spending will differ for workers and retirees. Private employers will spend about $4.2 billion on coverage for workers and dependents under current trends in 2001. Under a single-payer plan employers no longer pay this cost, but instead pay a tax equal to 6.3 percent of payroll, which would be equal to about $4.4 billion in 1998. Of this $4.4 billion in tax payments, about $457 million would be paid by firms that currently do not provide coverage."

The Consumer Health Open Insurance Coverage package, crafted, under Senator E.J.Pipkin's bold leadership, by some of the cutting-edge minds in health-insurance reform, is also our only comprehensive alternative to the current, often protectionist, patchwork of laws and regulations under which health care is now offered or paid for in Maryland.

Your committee can doubtless make some necessary improvements in these three proposed measures constituting the CHOICE package, but MTA believes the fundamental principles of working toward consumer ownership of health insurance and instituting consumer choice among competing plans in the CHOICE package, are the best guides to improving access and payment for health care services in Maryland.

Thank You.