Medicaid Expansion ~ Maine people speak in Augusta State House April 3, 2018

A press conference held jointly by Maine Providers Standing Up for Healthcare with Maine Equal Justice Partners.

AUGUSTA, ME ~ The purpose of the April 3, 2018 press conference was to educate the public about demanding the Governor Paul LePage administration's due compliance with the Medicaid Expansion law.

Donna Walls (right) at the April 3, 2018 press conference with Maine Providers Standing Up for Healthcare, pictured with Allison Weiss, in Augusta Maine

Maine lawmakers, five times, passed the Medicaid Expansion as provided under the Affordable Care Act.  Each time, the bill was vetoed by Maine Governor Paul LePage. Subsequently, in November 2017, the Medicaid Expansion was passed by ballot initiative.

Today in Augusta, Maine, the providers and Maine citizens demanded for the Governor LePage administration to comply with the law and to support the law passed by voters.

Donna Wall described the circumstances she is challenged since her Medicaid coverage was revoked by Governor Paul LePage.

Press conference attendees were visibly moved by Donna Wall's dire situation:

My name is Donna Wall and I'm a member of the Lewiston community.  I am one of the thousands of uninsured Mainers who are struggling with medical debt and worried about my future.

I am a full time, unpaid caregiver for my three adult kids living with autism.  When my two sons turned 18 years old, almost two years ago, I lost MaineCare eligibility and I've been uninsured ever since.  I'm here speaking today to show my support for caregivers and the medical providers who work so hard to take care of our kids, elders and loved ones. Medical providers see, first hand, what happens when their patients are uninsured and I thank them for speaking up with me today.

Over the past few months, I have been reminded of just how important health care is.  Although I already work full-time as an unpaid caregiver, I needed to find paid work to support my kids and I managed to find a job that fit my busy schedule. 

At 2 AM, after my kids were long asleep, I delivered newspapers door-to-door.  If I ran, the four-mile route could take me three hours.  If the weather was bad, it could take me close to five or six hours.  The long, cold Maine winters were the worst because of the icy conditions.  Last year, I fell and injured my tailbone and rib.  

I didn't go to the hospital because I knew I couldn't afford the bill.

This past December, while on my newspaper route, I slipped and fella gain.  This time, I was left with more than a bruise. I broke every bone in my ankle. I had no way of avoiding going to the hospital, this time. It was devastating when the emergency room doctor told me I needed surgery.  All I could do was think about who was going to care for my kids and how I was going to pay for my medical treatment.

To date, I am $62,000 in medical debt. Knowing that Medicaid expansion is the law and will be implemented on July 2nd is a huge relief for me and my family. I will no longer have to fear going outside and getting hurt and being burdened with more debt. I can focus on caring for my kids.

Governor LePage said he will not implement the Medicaid expansion law until the wait lists for home care services are funded.

Well, I am living proof that this is a false choice that we do not need to make. My children are on the wait list for section 21 services AND I need health care under the expansion, so that I can continue to care for them.

Both issues can be priorities. With revenue surplus of $140 million, the Governor could propose to fund Medicaid expansion and reduce the wait list for home care services. The governor is creating a false choice and attempting to pit people against one another, but we are all in this together and Maine can do better than that. 

The truth is, that Governor LePage is choosing to prioritize tax breaks for corporations and wealthy ahead of providing affordable health care for all Mainers. 

I am calling on the Governor and the Legislature to ensure that Medical expansion is funded so that people like me can get the health care they need. 

We're counting the days; we're counting on you.

Portland Maine Letter to editor - consequences of GOP health bill

Taking health care coverage away from people causes substantial harm.

On Independence Day 2017, let's remember to keep the health of all Americans in our hearts.

PORTLAND, Me- from Sam Zager, M.D.

Sen. Susan Collins deserves tremendous credit for her courageous stand against her own party’s health bill. Her crucial opposition helped protect many of the most vulnerable in Maine and across America.

The Republican proposal would fund colossal tax cuts for the wealthy, largely by stripping $772 billion from Medicaid by 2026, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found.

Doing so would hobble many hardworking Mainers who have multiple jobs, or are between jobs; it would harm about half of Maine’s children (47 percent of Maine children and 23 percent of all Mainers receive medical care through Medicaid); it would disrespect and endanger the 1.75 million veterans nationwide who depend on Medicaid (only 40 percent of veterans receive health care through the Veterans Affairs system); it would devastate thousands of our state’s nursing home residents and their families; and it would threaten Maine’s rural critical-access hospitals, which are economic drivers for large portions of our state.

More important than money, though, the Republican proposal would imperil lives.

In 1993, a landmark study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association quantified the link between lack of health insurance and deaths. It was validated by the federal Institute of Medicine in 2002, and by the impartial Urban Institute in 2008. 

The most recent independent study of this link – published in 2009 in the American Journal of Public Health – found that lack of insurance conferred a 40 percent increased risk of death. In all, these studies suggest that during the six- to 12-year follow-up period, 18,000 to 45,000 Americans lost their lives each year because of lack of insurance.

On this Independence Day, we should remember how struggle and bloodshed were the price of the freedom to establish our unique form of government. As the health debate continues in Congress, I hope Sen. Collins and her colleagues keep the health of all Americans truly in their hearts.

Sam Zager, M.D. 

Maine Providers Standing Up for Healthcare

Opposition pressuring Susan Collins to reject Senate Republican health bill

Lewiston Sun Journal- by Steven Collins

Dr. Connie Adler a Family Practice physician from Farmington Maine and Jaime Johnson, R.N., a labor and delivery nurse, spoke at the June 23, 2017 press conference at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, about the devastating impact of the Republican repeal and replace bill.

LEWISTON, Me: Working as a long-term substitute teacher and with a baby on the way, 31-year-old Tom Kelley figured he was young enough and healthy enough to “coast a little”, without coughing up scarce cash for health insurance.

Then the Lewiston man noticed something unsettling, went to his doctor and learned that he really ought to have an ultrasound test that would likely help determine what was going on.

Kelley made some phone calls and learned the test would cost somewhere between $500 and $1,500.

Fortunately for him, this happened during a window of time that anyone could sign up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act so, with days to spare, he picked up a $26-a-month policy.

It turned out to be a wise move. Diagnosed with cancer, Kelly has had surgery and a CAT scan already and is nearing the end of a round of chemotherapy that, with luck, will cure him completely.

Now with a three-week-old daughter, Ada, he has shelled out a total of $800 in addition to his monthly policy payments, a drop in the water compared to the many thousands of dollars in medical bills he’s racked up.

“I’m glad I got insurance and I don’t know what I would have done without it,” Kelley said Friday.

As he watches politicians in Washington wrangle with a proposed overhaul of the health care system — one that could make it harder for people with pre-existing conditions to get affordable care — Kelley said he’s worried about what could happen.

“It’s frustrating” he said. “(Those in Congress) all have insurance. Sometimes I think they really can’t relate to the average Mainer.”

A grassroots group of more than 400 health care professionals, Maine Providers Standing Up for Healthcare, is trying to hammer home the idea that Republican efforts to revamp President Barack Obama’s ACA threaten to leave tens of thousands of Mainers who now have insurance out in the cold.

A handful of doctors and nurses connected to the group that formed this spring said they’re worried the proposal will wind up forcing some rural Maine hospitals to close, crimp efforts to help opioid addicts, worsen an already troubling infant mortality rate, make mental health care scarce, hurt seniors who rely on MaineCare and cause many people to put off medical care until their problems become more dangerous and expensive.

“People don’t realize how crucial Medicaid is,” said Julie L’Heureux, a nurse.

Vulnerable Mainers will be “at great risk” if backers are successful in pushing the Senate bill into law, Dr. Elizabeth Rothe, a family practitioner in Lewiston, said during a news conference Friday at Central Maine Medical Center.

One of her patients, for example, has a 10-year-old daughter on MaineCare with cystic fibrosis who requires $15,000 worth of prescription drugs every month. If the GOP allows insurers to have lifetime limits on how much can be spent, Rothe said, that girl could wind up “very sick” or perhaps die.

Jaime Johnson, a labor and delivery nurse in Norway, said her son Finley, 7, “has a pre-existing condition from birth” because of a congenital heart problem that’s already required him to undergo three major surgeries.

She said she’s concerned that having a condition like Finley’s will land children in a high-risk pool that’s so expensive that parents will be forced to delay proper treatment or extend waiting periods between necessary surgeries.

It turned out to be a wise move. Diagnosed with cancer, Kelly has had surgery and a CAT scan already and is nearing the end of a round of chemotherapy that, with luck, will cure him completely.

Now with a three-week-old daughter, Ada, he has shelled out a total of $800 in addition to his monthly policy payments, a drop in the water compared to the many thousands of dollars in medical bills he’s racked up.

“I’m glad I got insurance and I don’t know what I would have done without it,” Kelley said Friday.

As he watches politicians in Washington wrangle with a proposed overhaul of the health care system — one that could make it harder for people with pre-existing conditions to get affordable care — Kelley said he’s worried about what could happen.

“It’s frustrating” he said. “(Those in Congress) all have insurance. Sometimes I think they really can’t relate to the average Mainer.”

A grassroots group of more than 400 health care professionals, Maine Providers Standing Up for Healthcare, is trying to hammer home the idea that Republican efforts to revamp President Barack Obama’s ACA threaten to leave tens of thousands of Mainers who now have insurance out in the cold.

A handful of doctors and nurses connected to the group that formed this spring said they’re worried the proposal will wind up forcing some rural Maine hospitals to close, crimp efforts to help opioid addicts, worsen an already troubling infant mortality rate, make mental health care scarce, hurt seniors who rely on MaineCare and cause many people to put off medical care until their problems become more dangerous and expensive.

“People don’t realize how crucial Medicaid is,” said Julie L’Heureux, a nurse.

Vulnerable Mainers will be “at great risk” if backers are successful in pushing the Senate bill into law, Dr. Elizabeth Rothe, a family practitioner in Lewiston, said during a news conference Friday at Central Maine Medical Center.

One of her patients, for example, has a 10-year-old daughter on MaineCare with cystic fibrosis who requires $15,000 worth of prescription drugs every month. If the GOP allows insurers to have lifetime limits on how much can be spent, Rothe said, that girl could wind up “very sick” or perhaps die.

Jaime Johnson, a labor and delivery nurse in Norway, said her son Finley, 7, “has a pre-existing condition from birth” because of a congenital heart problem that’s already required him to undergo three major surgeries.

She said she’s concerned that having a condition like Finley’s will land children in a high-risk pool that’s so expensive that parents will be forced to delay proper treatment or extend waiting periods between necessary surgeries.

“This may not kill my son immediately,” she said, “but it could in the end cost him years of life.”

A GOP-backed Senate bill unveiled this week, which aims to return more decision-making to the states, would make drastic changes to the ACA, including a major reduction in Medicaid spending and the elimination of most of the taxes that undergirded Obamacare’s financing. It would also potentially make it more difficult for people with pre-existing conditions and low incomes to get coverage.

Dr. Peter Shaw, a retired cardiologist, said the Senate proposal puts many ordinary people in danger “to pay off the plutocrats” whose taxes would be reduced under the proposed legislation.

Though retired, Dr. Charles Radis said the country’s health care system “is in drastic need of surgery.” He insisted that what’s required is to repair Obamacare, not repeal it.

But supporters of the overhaul argue that Obamacare is stumbling in many states, with too many rules and too little concern for the bottom line.

Maine’s two senators, Republican Susan Collins and Independent Angus King, are both skeptical about the Republican measure they may be asked to vote on next week.

For Tom Kelley, the important thing is that people can get affordable insurance.

When he first realized that he faced a lot of medical bills ahead, he said, he worried that it could be “extremely difficult.”

“Before I went bald, I had a few more gray hairs” from the fretting, he said.

His experience has made him appreciate the need for insurance in a way that he never could have while he was healthy.

That’s why it worries him that the GOP bill seems to make the problem worse for millions of people instead of making it better.

Chris Hansen, president of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, said the Senate measure “could greatly harm millions of cancer patients, survivors and those at risk for the disease.”

He said a provision in the Senate bill allows states to waive essential health benefits, jeopardizing protections for those with pre-existing conditions.

“Without guaranteed standard benefits, insurance plans would not have to offer the kind of coverage cancer patients need, or could make that coverage prohibitively expensive,” Hansen said.

In addition, he said, “plans could also once again set annual or lifetime caps on care, forcing individuals to choose between their life and life savings.”

Radis said Collins ought to show “true leadership” and break with her party on the proposal. Collins has denounced the House version of the bill, but is waiting for a Congressional Budget Office analysis of the Senate rewrite before making a decision on it.

Given that the Senate bill appears to be “just as poisonous to the health and wellness of Mainers as the bill that passed the House,” Dr. Sam Zager, a Portland family physician said, Collins “must vote against any bill that reduces meaningful coverage."

“She seems to be coming around,” Zager said.

Margaret Craven, a former Democratic legislator from Lewiston, said Collins and her colleagues need “to stop undermining and ruining the ACA” and listen to medical experts who are speaking out.

“I’m more inclined to trust what doctors say about health care than a politician,” Kelley said.

Kelley said if Collins sat at his dining room table, he would tell her “to do the right thing for her constituents.”

Meanwhile:  Senator Angus King blasts the GOP healthcare bill while Susan Collins studies it

Denouncing the Republican health care bill Thursday, independent U.S. Sen. Angus King of Maine, called it a “really cruel” bid to take health care away from the poor, disabled and elderly “so very wealthy people can get a tax cut.”