Politics
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The Legislature will take up a “continuing services” budget to fill a $118 million MaineCare deficit and help health care providers after Senate Republicans refused Thursday to back a short-term spending plan, Democratic leaders announced Friday.
The limited plan includes the funding for the state’s Medicaid program that serves more than 400,000 Mainers and is designed to “keep the lights on” and avoid a state government shutdown, Senate President Mattie Daughtry, D-Brunswick, and House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, D-Biddeford, said in a Friday statement. The continuing services budget has no new initiatives, and the top Democrats said lawmakers will vote on it in “the coming weeks” after the budget committee first takes it up Friday.
Daughtry and Fecteau announced the plan after the supplemental budget that included the MaineCare money and $2 million to fight spruce budworm infestations effectively died Thursday when all but two Senate Republicans continued to withhold the votes needed to give it a two-thirds majority for it to take effect immediately. Daughtry said she did not want to pass the plan by only a simple majority, because it would take 90 days for the money to reach health providers.
Lawmakers may also take up a standalone bill providing the spruce budworm investigation money. Democrats and House Republicans had agreed earlier in the week to back an amended short-term budget that included General Assistance limits and a third-party review of any MaineCare “waste, fraud and abuse,” but all Republican senators except Rick Bennett of Oxford and Marianne Moore of Calais said they wanted more provisions to cap costs, such as MaineCare work requirements.
“The fiscal uncertainty we are seeing in Washington can be avoided here in Maine,” Daughtry said Friday, while Fecteau said Democrats “are not willing to risk a government shutdown or neglect our state’s health and well-being.”
Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart, R-Presque Isle, did not immediately comment on Friday’s announcement but said Thursday that Democrats “want to continue to ignore our concerns surrounding the core policy issues that precipitated the MaineCare shortfall.”
Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, criticized Senate Republicans on Thursday and said their refusal to back the supplemental deal “is harmful for Maine health care providers and their patients.” The Legislature has also been moving ahead with hearings and votes on the governor’s two-year, $11.6 billion budget that mixes tax hikes with health cuts to fill a $450 million shortfall.
Hospitals and health care providers around Maine have warned they may need to cut services amid the state starting this week to cap and withhold certain payments to account for the continuing MaineCare funding gap.
“We’re frustrated,” Maine Hospital Association lobbyist Jeff Austin said after the Senate failed to pass the supplemental budget Thursday. “[We] have a few members that are in no shape to deal with this. We will seek other options.”
