Posted inLetters, sj-web

Extend Medicaid coverage

Medicaid saved my daughter’s life when she was born. When she was eight days old, we learned that she had gastric emptying delay and couldn’t keep any milk down, plus, she was lactose intolerant. She was literally starving to death as a baby. Medicaid fed her and provided the health care she needed so that […]

Posted inMaine, sj-web

Business groups split on Medicaid expansion referendum

Business groups in Maine have sharply diverging positions on the Nov. 7 referendum to expand Medicaid, with some viewing it as a source of economic benefits and others as a precursor to a tax increase. Still others are undecided. The contrasting views were apparent Tuesday when the Maine Small Business Coalition, which claims to have […]

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Posted inMaine, sj-web

Dunlap avoids political spat over wording of Medicaid ballot question

AUGUSTA — Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap dodged a political dust-up Thursday about the wording of a referendum on whether to expand Medicaid in Maine. The proposed wording of the question initially referred to Medicaid as “health insurance,” a description that raised ire among conservatives who insisted it is more fair to call it welfare […]

Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web

Scaling back Medicaid would hurt Maine families

The defeat of the repeal of Obamacare may mean that the health care debate has fallen off the front page of the newspaper, but it doesn’t mean the end of major changes in America’s health care system. Less noticed, but also critically important, is the fact that each governor, including Gov. Paul LePage, holds in […]

Posted inMaine, sj-web

Paul LePage says a Medicaid expansion would kill Maine

Gov. Paul LePage has turned his attention squarely at defeating the Medicaid expansion referendum on this November’s ballot, claiming again that broadening eligibility for the government-run program would drive the state into backbreaking debt. LePage’s ardent opposition to Medicaid expansion is nothing new. He has vetoed bids to do so six times during his tenure, […]

Posted inMaine, sj-web

LePage administration asks feds for MaineCare work requirements

AUGUSTA (AP) — Republican Gov. Paul LePage’s administration is officially asking the federal government to impose work and premium requirements on state Medicaid recipients. Low-income Mainers this spring told state regulators the changes would make it harder to access health care that would allow them to work. Maine Public reported (http://bit.ly/2vvfuU4 ) Maine Equal Justice […]

Posted inNation / World, sj-web

Health-care bill could strip public schools of billions for special education

WASHINGTON — School superintendents across the country are raising alarms about the possibility that Republican health care legislation would curtail billions of dollars in annual funding they count on to help students with disabilities and poor children. For the past three decades, Medicaid has helped pay for services and equipment that schools provide to special-education […]