There's a reason that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg this week surpassed Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to take the fourth spot on the world's-richest person list: the social media network has 1 billion daily users, 161 million of whom live in the U.S. and Canada, and estimates say that more than half of Maryland's 6 million people use Facebook.

 

That's why the network is an important part of MHA's efforts to generate public awareness about one of hospitals' top issues: ensuring that the annual $25 million spend-down of the state's Medicaid tax on hospital care remains intact during the 2016 legislative session.

 

The public portion of this campaign began this week with Facebook outreach to select legislators and Gov. Larry Hogan (with his roughly 100,000 Facebook followers), thanking them for their leadership last year in agreeing to the spend-down and asking them to extend their commitment during the current session.

 

MHA is planning additional awareness outreach on this issue through more traditional means, like direct mailings to hospital consumers, but the immediacy and reach of messages delivered through social media (already, several legislators have "liked" or shared our posts) rapidly augments the on-the-ground work being done in Annapolis to secure hospitals' stake in the budget debate.

 

If you're not already connected to us on Facebook or Twitter, take a moment to do so, and then share with your communities the messages we've disseminated about cutting taxes on hospital care. This is a great, real-world example of how hospitals continue to fight for their patients and communities in the halls of the statehouse.