Maryland Matters
Josh Kurtz
May 16, 2022
Excerpt:
“…But the 63-year-old senator is on the mend, his wife reported at the Maryland Health Care For All fundraiser.
“Chris is very unhappy and frustrated that he can’t be here in person,” Katherine Van Hollen said. Her husband, she said, was “eager” to get out of the hospital and return to work as quickly as possible, which is likely to happen later this week, according to his office.
She praised the health care coalition for “doing God’s work.”
Vincent DeMarco, president of the coalition, called Senator Van Hollen a great ally, dating back to his time in the General Assembly. He recalled working with Van Hollen on tobacco tax legislation in the late 1990’s over the objections of the powerful state Senate president, the late Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D), who said a tobacco tax increase would happen “over my dead body.”
“I guess that’s what we’re going to have to do,” DeMarco recounted Van Hollen saying, as the crowd roared with laughter.
Katherine Van Hollen said that despite the difficulty of accomplishing anything substantive in Congress these days, her husband remains optimistic that lawmakers there will be able to craft a compromise to reduce the price of prescription drug prices.
“Few things are more important than access to quality, affordable health care,” she said.
Also speaking at the fundraiser Monday: Baltimore Mayor Brandon M. Scott (D), state Del. Maggie L. McIntosh (D-Baltimore City), who just stepped down as chair of the House Appropriations Committee in Annapolis, and state Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D), who appeared via Zoom. The event raised about $30,000 for the health care advocacy group and attracted an “A list” of politicians, health care policy experts, union leaders, and philanthropists.”
Read the full article at Maryland Matters.
Last modified: July 12, 2022
