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What would you do if your salary was suddenly reduced or withheld at least 90 days, perhaps as long as six months? How would you get by?
That is the situation Maine’s medical providers — perhaps your doctor, dentist, therapist, or hospital — could face if the Maine Legislature fails to pass its supplemental budget by a two-thirds margin, the margin needed for the bill to take effect immediately.
Gov. Janet Mills has warned payments to medical providers could be impacted as soon as this month if the budget’s $118 million in funding for MaineCare does not go into effect right away.
If you could not pay your bills, what would you do? Will hospitals delay or cut services? Will medical practitioners change careers or retire, like happened during the COVID pandemic?
But that is just the impact on hospitals and medical providers. What about ordinary Maine citizens? A quarter of Mainers are enrolled in MaineCare, many of them children and many of them rural Mainers, who tend to vote Republican.
I hear many Republican legislators blame Democrats on this $118 million MaineCare budget shortfall. But voting against the supplemental budget does not hurt Democrats, it hurts Mainers, particularly rural Mainers and children.
So, call your Republican legislators. Urge them to join Democrats in passing this supplemental budget. Tell them failing to pass it with a two-thirds majority is not the right way to express frustration with Democrats, that it will hurt too many of their own constituents.
Gordon Street
Lincoln
