Just hours after Maine voters grew to become the primary within the nation to make use of the poll field to increase Medicaid beneath the Affordable Care Act, Republican Gov. Paul LePage stated he wouldn’t implement it except the Legislature funds the state’s share of an growth.
“Give me the money and I will enforce the referendum,” LePage stated. Unless the Legislature totally funds the growth — with out elevating taxes or utilizing the state’s wet day fund — he stated he wouldn’t implement it.
LePage has lengthy been a staunch opponent of Medicaid growth. The Maine Legislature has handed payments to increase the insurance coverage program 5 occasions since 2013, however the governor vetoed each.
That observe document prompted Robyn Merrill, co-chair of the coalition Mainers for Health Care, to take the matter on to voters Tuesday.
The technique labored. Medicaid growth, or Question 2, handed handily, with 59 p.c of voters in favor and 41 p.c in opposition to.
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“Maine is sending a strong and weighty message to politicians in Augusta, and across the country,” Merrill stated. “We need more affordable health care, not less.”
Medicaid growth would deliver well being protection to about 70,000 people in Maine.
As a battle now brews over implementation in Maine, different states will doubtless be watching: teams in Idaho and Utah are attempting to place Medicaid growth on their state ballots subsequent 12 months.
With passage of the poll measure, Maine is poised to affix the 31 states and the District of Columbia which have already expanded Medicaid to cowl adults with incomes as much as 138 p.c of the federal poverty degree. That’s about $16,000 for a person, and about $34,000 for a household of 4.
Currently, individuals in Maine who make an excessive amount of for conventional Medicaid and who aren’t eligible for sponsored medical health insurance on the federal market fall right into a protection hole. It was created when the Supreme Court made Medicaid growth beneath the Affordable Care Act optionally available.
That’s the state of affairs Kathleen Phelps finds herself in. She’s a hairdresser from Waterville who has emphysema and continual obstructive pulmonary illness. She stated she has needed to forgo her medicines and oxygen as a result of she will be able to’t afford them. “Finally, finally, maybe people now people like myself can get the health care we need,” she stated.
Medicaid growth would even be a win for hospitals. More than half of these in Maine are working within the crimson. Across the state, hospitals present greater than $100 million a 12 months in charity care, in line with the Maine Hospital Association. Expanding Medicaid protection will bolster their fiscal well being and provides medical doctors and nurses extra choices to deal with their previously uninsured sufferers, stated Jeff Austin, a spokesman with the affiliation.
“There are just avenues of care that open up when you see a patient from recommending a prescription drug or seeing a counselor,” he stated. “Doors that were closed previously will now be open.”
But voter approval is probably not sufficient. Though a legislative price range evaluation workplace estimates Medicaid growth would result in $500 million in federal funding to Maine every year, it will additionally value the state about $50 million a 12 months.
The destiny of the Medicaid growth will now be within the palms of the Legislature, the place lawmakers can change it like some other invoice. Four poll initiatives handed by Maine voters final 12 months have been delayed, altered or overturned.
But state Democratic leaders pledge to implement the measure. “Any attempts to illegally delay or subvert the law … will be fought with every recourse at our disposal,” Speaker of the House Sara Gideon stated. “Mainers demanded affordable access to health care yesterday, and that is exactly what we intend to deliver.”
This story is a part of a partnership that features Maine Public, NPR and Kaiser Health News.
Cost and Quality, Insurance, Medicaid, States, The Health Law
