The Maryland Department of Health has agreed to renew Kaiser Permanente’s contract as a Medicaid provider, averting an outcome that one prominent health care advocate said would have amounted to a blow to public health. Gene Ransom, CEO of the independent Maryland State Medical Society, said Tuesday that a tentative decision made by the state health department last week to remove the health care giant from its list of managed care organizations (MCOs) that provide care through Medicaid would have left about 110,000 Marylanders without health care coverage and seeking new doctors with little time to adjust their status.
