Healthcare is the key to future-proofing Baltimore County’s economy | GUEST COMMENTARY (original) (raw)

In April, Comptroller Brooke Lierman released “Maryland Industry Analysis: Healthcare and the Economy,” the most comprehensive state-level examination of Maryland’s healthcare sector ever. The headline finding: Healthcare is now Maryland’s largest industry, employing 427,000 people, accounting for 8% of state GDP and acting as the leading job creator for seven of the past 10 years. But the comptroller’s report is also a warning. A nursing shortage of stark proportions — 9,000 RN job openings per month against only 1,800 new hires — and a looming $2.7 billion loss in federal Medicaid funding under H.R. 1 threaten the sector’s stability just as Maryland’s population ages into its highest-demand years.

The comptroller’s report is a statewide diagnosis. What it demands is a county-level response. Nowhere is the intersection of healthcare opportunity and economic urgency more acute than in Baltimore County. The same forces the report identifies — federal retrenchment, AI-driven displacement of professional services jobs, a rapidly aging population — are playing out in concentrated form in Baltimore County. It has world-class healthcare anchors, allied higher education institutions, and in 2026, an unprecedented window of new political leadership.

Three forces beyond Baltimore County’s control are converging in 2026: the federal government’s retreat from Maryland (nearly 25,000 federal jobs lost in 2025 alone), the accelerating displacement of professional services work by AI and the economic aftershocks of the current war. Maryland ranks among the nation’s most vulnerable states for AI-driven job loss, according to Tufts University’s Digital Planet research. The administrative and professional roles that once anchored our middle class face the same disruption that destroyed entire industries in previous generations.

Baltimore County government is uniquely positioned to respond. It is one of the only large local governments in the nation where no municipalities, towns or separate taxing authorities operate within its borders. A countywide economic strategy faces no internal competition. And 2026 brings a new county executive and an almost entirely new council — expanded from seven to nine members by voter approval in 2024. If this leadership cohort has the capacity to pivot, it can help stem the trends of declining population and median household income.

Amid all this disruption, Baltimore County’s world-class medical institutions stand firm: GBMC, University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center, Northwest Hospital, Sheppard Pratt and MedStar Franklin Square. These are not merely employers. They are nonprofit institutions with strong benefits, deep community roots and workforces built on possible lifetime careers. Critically, the comptroller’s report confirms what Goldman Sachs and multiple academic studies have found: Healthcare is a sanctuary from AI displacement. Nurses, surgical technicians, physical therapists and clinical specialists require high-touch human judgment and physical presence that no algorithm can replicate. Supporting these anchors is Baltimore County’s higher education ecosystem — Community College of Baltimore County, Goucher, Stevenson, Towson and UMBC — already producing the professionals our hospitals need.

Our aging population is an economic opportunity, not just a social challenge. Per CMS data, per-person healthcare spending for Americans 65 and older exceeds 22,000annually—morethandoublethatofworking−ageadults.BaltimoreCounty’sseniorsholdvastlatentcapitalinMedicare,secondaryinsuranceandlong−termcarecoverage.FormerMarylandersroutinelyreturnfromoutofstatespecificallytoaccessourhealthcareinstitutions.Thatisqualitydrawingconsumersacrossstatelines.Arotatorcuffrepairalone—fullycoveredbyMedicareandaMedigappolicy—contributes22,000 annually — more than double that of working-age adults. Baltimore County’s seniors hold vast latent capital in Medicare, secondary insurance and long-term care coverage. Former Marylanders routinely return from out of state specifically to access our healthcare institutions. That is quality drawing consumers across state lines. A rotator cuff repair alone — fully covered by Medicare and a Medigap policy — contributes 22,000annually—morethandoublethatofworking−ageadults.BaltimoreCounty’sseniorsholdvastlatentcapitalinMedicare,secondaryinsuranceandlong−termcarecoverage.FormerMarylandersroutinelyreturnfromoutofstatespecificallytoaccessourhealthcareinstitutions.Thatisqualitydrawingconsumersacrossstatelines.Arotatorcuffrepairalone—fullycoveredbyMedicareandaMedigappolicy—contributes12,000 to $15,000 to the local economy. Multiply that by the scale of our senior population, and the case is irrefutable.

Baltimore County’s economic model has long relied on the “feds, eds, beds and meds” formula. Two of those four pillars are weakening rapidly. Population growth is flat, median household income is declining and commercial vacancies are multiplying. The comptroller’s report frames the same dynamic at the state level, and Gov. Wes Moore himself has called on Maryland to move beyond over-dependence on federal employment. Baltimore County must lead that transition locally.

The new county executive should open their term by convening a summit of the CEOs of our five anchor healthcare institutions alongside the presidents of our post-secondary schools. The agenda is a single question: What can county government do to support and accelerate your growth? Positioning government as partner rather than regulator will surface specific zoning bottlenecks, workforce gaps and infrastructure needs. No countywide inventory of existing healthcare-education partnerships currently exists; creating one and investing in the most productive of those relationships is an early, concrete action. That summit becomes the blueprint for realigning the county’s economic development resources with an almost singular focus toward its most resilient industry.

The “healthcare-first” strategy must coexist with continued, aggressive support for Tradepoint Atlantic. The 3,300-acre Sparrows Point redevelopment — one of the largest industrial projects in North America — is similarly insulated from AI disruption. Its logistics and maritime operations require physical infrastructure and specialized human labor. Tradepoint remains a co-equal pillar, providing the diversified tax base that balances our healthcare-centered growth strategy.

The choice is clear. We can wait for AI to displace our professional workforce and for federal retrenchment to hollow out our middle class. Or we can build deliberately around the institutions that are growing, that are AI-proof and that anchor the lives of our residents from birth through their final years. The future of Baltimore County’s economy is not in a server farm. It’s in our hospitals and classrooms. It’s time to lean in.

Patrick Roddy is a retired attorney and lifelong Baltimore County resident. He worked directly for five Baltimore County executives, most recently for County Executive Kathy Klausmeier during her first six months in office. He served as Baltimore County’s lobbyist in Annapolis from 1979 to 2003 and represented clients there as a partner with Rifkin Weiner Livingston until 2021.