Here are five things to know about the proposed legislation.
1. Rep. Mary Lisanti (D-Harford County) sponsored House Bill 932, which would require hospital operators to pay a fee to cover the cost of assisting employees who lose their jobs as a result of a hospital’s decision to merge or close.
2. The fee would amount to one-tenth of a percent of the hospital’s gross revenues for the fiscal year prior to its closing and would be paid to the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Registration. Ms. Lisanti told The Baltimore Sun the money would be placed into a fund to retrain and place workers.
3. House Bill 932 would also apply to community hospitals that close and are later converted into freestanding medical centers or are acquired by larger hospitals or health systems, according to the report.
4. Ms. Lisanti proposed the bill after learning of Havre de Grace-based Harford Memorial Hospital’s shuttering within the next several years, according to the report. Havre de Grace-based the University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Health, which operates Harford Memorial Hospital, intends to close the hospital and develop a freestanding hybrid medical center, a move that would decrease the hospital staff from 600 employees to 500, according to the report.
5. The House Health and Government Operations Committee heard the bill March 2. It went before the Health Facilities and Pharmaceuticals Subcommittee for a work session Thursday. The subcommittee will review the bill and decide whether to kill it or send it back to the committee, which will then decide whether to send it to the state House of Representatives for a vote, according to the report.
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