According to a poll conducted this past summer by pollsters Penn, Schoen and Berland, 78% of Marylanders believe every person in the State should be entitled to quality health care regardless of income or employment. Sadly, though, over 700,000 Marylanders, including over 100,000 children have no health insurance and an equal number have inadequate health coverage. The same poll indicated that, 87% of Marylanders believe the present system is in a crisis or has serious problems and 31% of Marylanders with health insurance have been denied medically necessary treatments by their health insurance provider.

Clearly, the present health care insurance system is fundamentally flawed. That is why community, religious and medical leaders from across the State have come together to form the Maryland Citizens' Health Initiative Education Fund, Inc., (the "Initiative") - an organization whose goal is to build a grassroots demand for a health care system that would guarantee quality health care for all Marylanders.

The Initiative is not a lobbying organization. No amount of lobbying can achieve universal health care without broad-based citizen support. Our goal is to build such a movement by working with community, religious and medical groups from across the State to educate Marylanders about the need for a comprehensive program that will guarantee quality health care for all Marylanders. Our strategy includes creation of a statewide conversation about the current crisis in health care. We believe that these dialogues will enhance community awareness, generating the impetus necessary for political change. On October 4, we launched our campaign by unveiling a "Declaration of Health Care Independence." We will seek to convince at least 2000 organizations to sign this "Declaration" by the end of the year 2000. It calls for a health care system that would guarantee access to quality health care for all Marylanders regardless of income, employment or health status. Several important statewide organizations have already agreed to sign our "Declaration of Health Care Independence"; including the Center for Poverty Solutions, the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, the Central Maryland Ecumenical Council, the Mid-Atlantic Association of Community Health Centers, the Baltimore City Health Department, the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church, and Local 1199E of the Service Employees International Union. We will work with the leadership of these and other organizations to make sure that all of their members discuss the "Declaration," and, sign on. We will, of course, be reaching out to many other organizations across Maryland, including every other religious denomination. Few issues have as much moral force with the religious and community organizations as guaranteeing quality health care for all.

Building this movement will, of course, require a statewide perspective. According to the poll described above, support for the proposition that every Marylander is entitled to comprehensive health care coverage is strong in every region of the State. The Initiative will work with our coalition partners throughout Maryland to build on this support. "I'm not against lobbying, but it's not effective without widespread support as a foundation."