Frederick County Delegate Ken Kerr is a lead sponsor.
Delegate Ken Kerr
Frederick, Md (KM) The 2025 Maryland General Assembly will be considering a bill to extend a program providing subsidies to young adults to purchase health insurance. “Back in 2022, we began pilot program, a two-year pilot, to provide a state-funded subsidy to reduce the premiums for working young adults in Maryland, specifically between the ages of 18 to 34,” says Frederick County Delegate Ken Kerr, one of the lead sponsors of the bill.
Kerr says the state program is for young people who make up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level which is about $54,000 annually for an individual. “At that level of income, you don’t quality for a federal subsidy. You’re not eligible for Medicaid. And the insurance premiums seem to be just a bit too high to be covered by health insurance,” he says.
These subsidies help young people to purchase health insurance. “So before the subsidy, their insurance premium, on a Maryland Benefit Exchange Affordable Care Act Gold Plan would have been $125 per month. This subsidy lowers the average premium to $87 per month,” says Kerr.
The program is authorized for 2022 to 2024, but it will expire next year.
The subsidies come from a portion of Maryland’s re-insurance fund which is funded by a state assessment on one percent of the profits made by insurance carriers.
Kerr says this program has a lot of support. “This is a program that is supported by the Maryland Health Benefit Exchanges,. by all the major carriers. Everyone is in support of this because they see how well it works,”: he says.
If the bill making this program permanent is approved, Kerr says the re-insurance fund will need to be re-authorized in 2026. . “I haven’t seen the final text of the bill yet as it’s coming out of bill drafting. But I suspect what we will do is to tie it to the continuance of that reinsurance fund,” he says.
The 2025 Maryland General Assembly will begin its 90-day session on January 8th.
By Kevin McManus