Bell Motor Company   On the Square in Leonardtown    301-475-BELL

Legislators Pass Competing Bills; Ehrlich Vows Veto
ANNAPOLIS ---  "I voted against both of Governor Ehrlich's big tax proposals, the car tax and the flush tax on septic systems and I voted yesterday against the HMO tax which was included in both versions of the bill promoted by the General Assembly," said Senator Roy Dyson, explaining his vote in support of the Governor's bill to give relief to the medical malpractice insurance rates sought by Maryland's doctors.
"We have plenty of funds taken from the taxpayer to fund this or probably anything else they can dream up here in Annapolis and we don't need to dip into the pockets of the citizens of Maryland once again to pay for something new," said Dyson.
In a rare special session convened by Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich, the Maryland General Assembly met on Tuesday and rejected a bill authored by the Governor to subsidize insurance costs for Maryland doctors and instead each branch of the assembly passed their own bills.
Senator Roy Dyson (D. Charles, Calvert, St. Mary's) was the one of three Democrats to initially vote against the provision of the bill which would have included a tax on HMO's, including Sen. Lawlah of PG County along with a Baltimore County senator, according to Dyson's staffer Chris Falkenhagen.
On later versions, according to the Baltimore Sun, only Dyson among the Senate Democrats, voted to support Ehrlich's bill.
Ehrlich's bill would have used general treasury funds to pay for the costs of insuring doctors for malpractice and would have imposed legal limits on lawsuits against doctors.
Democrats argued that the HMOs should be taxed just as other insurers are and that the tax on them would simply be closing a favorable loophole which isn't fair to other insurers.
Republicans said that the HMO tax would unfairly hurt the working families when they can least afford it.
The special session could continue on for another two days.
The legislature had only a skeleton crew working to print out bills and one amendment which was 75 pages long which everyone knew would fail took up a lot of their time to produce. But this was only part of the cost, estimated to be close to $50,000 in one published report, of running the special session.
Both houses of the legislature are expected to meet today to come to a compromise but with both the House and the Senate insisting on an HMO tax, the threat of the Governor to veto the bill leaves little hope for any change in the number of doctors planning on leaving Maryland.
The General Assembly returns for it's regular session on Jan. 15th.  If the Governor vetoes the final bill, it would take 3/5's majority of each house to over-ride his veto to allow the bill to become law.  Such an over-ride is unlikely.