Politics

As new data report some 28,000 low-income Marylanders have been disenrolled from Medicaid in June alone and are losing out on federal health coverage, state health officials are looking for ways to make the administrative process for redetermination easier to ensure eligible people do not lose coverage. The Maryland Department of Health has requested more than a dozen federal waivers to temporarily reduce administrative hurdles during a period often referred to as Medicaid unwinding.

Eleven days after gunfire ripped through a block party at South Baltimore’s Brooklyn Homes public housing complex, questions about how the event escaped the notice of police and the housing authority remain unanswered. Hundreds of people went to Brooklyn Day, an annual party held almost every summer for the past three decades, and a series of shootings just after midnight July 2, left two dead and 28 others with injuries.

Maryland is welcoming transgender individuals with open arms — but there’s nowhere to put them, a Baltimore nonprofit says. On June 5, Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, signed an executive order to protect gender affirming health care in Maryland as legislation seeking to outlaw such care sweeps across the nation, mostly targeting minors.

On Thursday, the public will have one more chance to give their opinions about whether solar panel projects should be banned on farmland in Carroll County. Commissioners will hold a public hearing at 9 a.m., Thursday, in Room 311 of the Carroll County Office Building, 225 N. Center St., Westminster.

The Food and Drug Administration will soon embark on a long-term expansion of its Laurel campus with hybrid work playing a starring role. The National Capital Planning Commission on July 6 approved the revised, final master plan for the FDA’s existing 249-acre campus at 8301 Muirkirk Road. The FDA has long envisioned massively expandi

Baltimore City Councilman Zeke Cohen has launched an effort to prevent Baltimore Gas and Electric from raising its rates. BGE proposed increases in gas and electric delivery rates. It could raise bills by more than $10 dollars a month over a three-year period. Cohen called the increases unnecessary and costly to ratepayers.

A week after 30 people were shot — two fatally — in a historic attack in Baltimore, Gov. Wes Moore said that stemming the bloodshed will require more police and tougher sentencing for repeat violent offenders — echoing a tonal shift for Democratic leaders grappling with escalating gun violence. “You cannot violate the safety of our community and think there will be little or no accountability for it,” Moore said during an interview in which he detailed what he calls an “all of the above” strategy.

Frederick resident Mia Mason, a Democrat, is running for Maryland’s 6th Congressional District, trying to become the first openly transgender person to serve in the legislative body. Mason, a U.S. military veteran, also ran for Congress in 2020. She lost to Republican incumbent Andy Harris in the 1st District, 63% to 36%.

Gov Wes Moore (D) is standing by his recent appointments to a powerful state commission that regulates hospital costs — despite questions about whether they are legally eligible to serve. The issue was raised when Moore named two high-profile appointees to the Health Services Cost Review Commission: Nicki McCann, vice president of provider/payer transformation for the Johns Hopkins Health System, and former Maryland Health Secretary Joshua Sharfstein, who currently serves as vice dean at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.