Letter to the Editor: Question 2 important for Franklin County

6 mins read
Timothy Churchill

Healthcare has rightly held a dominant place in our national debate for many years now, and for good reason. It makes up a sixth of our national economy, and few policy areas touch us as personally as the debate over how to provide all Americans with quality, affordable health care.

And make no mistake, healthcare is also an important local issue here in Franklin County. The people in our community need access to good medical care at affordable costs, and there is no denying that our local healthcare organizations are major area employers and a key part of the local economy.

That’s why we all have a stake in Question 2 on this November’s ballot, which asks Maine people if they want to expand our state’s Medicaid program, known as MaineCare, to low-income people, most of whom have no other options for affordable coverage.

There are good, compassionate reasons for doing this. If Question 2 passes, it would extend MaineCare coverage to nearly 80,000 low-income Maine people, many of whom work but have no access to affordable health insurance. This will translate directly into better health and medical outcomes for these individuals. And make no mistake about it – these are our neighbors, our employees, our family and our friends. Though most have jobs, they do not earn enough income to qualify for subsidies on the Exchange.

Question 2, however, is more than an opportunity to help out hardworking Mainers. It is a chance to bring hundreds of millions of dollars to the state of Maine, create thousands of jobs and stabilize our community health networks, including Franklin Community Health Network.

With the federal government picking up no less than 90 percent of the cost of expansion, Maine will see an infusion of $496 million a year into its economy, and an estimated 6,000 jobs will be created as a result. While the state government will eventually have to pay 10 percent of the cost, this would amount to roughly a 5 percent increase in state Medicaid spending and account for less than 2 percent of the overall state budget.

This is a good deal for Maine. Most of us with private insurance pay a lot more in out of pocket expenses than 10 percent of the cost. And indeed, if the state of Maine was asked to grant $55 million a year in tax breaks to attract an employer that would create 6,000 jobs and bring half a billion dollars a year into Maine’s economy, wouldn’t it make sense to do so?

And these benefits won’t be accruing solely to Portland or some other distant part of the state. Right here in Franklin County, the Maine Center for Economic Policy estimates there will be a $18 million impact on our local economy, with 189 new jobs created.

As important, passage of Question 2 will also help to stabilize our community hospitals and local health systems. In fiscal 2016, 19 of Maine’s 34 hospitals lost money, and many others fell short of budget. In that year, Maine’s 36 hospitals had a combined operating margin of $29.4 million, but if you take Maine Medical Center and Eastern Maine Medical Center out of that mix, the remaining Maine hospitals lost $50.7 million. And while our hospitals are struggling to maintain services and meet their bottom lines, they are sending hundreds of millions of dollars to states that did expand Medicaid. Passage of the referendum would keep these dollars at home supporting our own Maine people in need.

Here at Franklin Community Health Network, we are among those 19 hospitals that lost money, and we have worked hard against a difficult tide in recent years. While expanding the MaineCare program won’t solve all the problems faced by our community hospitals, it will help to keep services in place.

The Legislature has had ample opportunity to pass expansion, and now it is up to the voters to make their voices heard: As Mainers, we have to ask ourselves, what would be in the best interest of our most vulnerable residents and our communities?

The answer is clear. The benefits of Medicaid expansion far exceed the costs. Voting “yes” on Question 2 is not just good for patients, our communities and our healthcare system, but also for the Maine’s economy. That’s especially true for rural areas of our state like ours. Please join me in supporting this important initiative on Nov. 7.

Timothy Churchill, Interim President and CEO
Franklin Community Health Network

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25 Comments

  1. Mr. Churchill:
    Isn’t that passing additional costs onto the working tax payers? Look what the Baldacci Administration did to all of the Maine’s hospitals. He was an advocate of Maine-Care/Medicaid, and the State never paid the outstanding bills until LePage decided to pay them off – to the tune of what? $14 Million just to Farmington?
    What happened to the ACA? That’s when people were going to PARTICIPATE in their medical costs. With an increase in Maine-Care, it’s another free ride for a lot of people.
    All of Maine’s Hospitals are tax exempt. So towns like Farmington already pay – plowing, sanding, and picking up the slack for the expanding school budget, when the hospital pays nothing toward those costs.
    I’m sorry, but I cannot support Maine-Care/Medicaid. I’ve seen what our insurance pays your institution. And then I’ve seen all the bills coming into us for the part the insurance doesn’t pay. And then I see others who pay nothing.
    I’m voting NO on #2.

  2. Me too. Too many free rides for some. I know some on Maine care and they are very happy with it the way it is. Every trip for dental, disease, skin,sickness of any kind costs 0$ WHY change it? Someone is always thinking up ways to take more and more money away from workers and retirees.

  3. Amazing. Same people every time with the same selfish,uniformed,arrogant arguments. I am quite sure both Mrs. Porter and Woodsman have insurance and access to healthcare, but there are thousands in this region that do not. Your local hospital is trying very hard to provide care for EVERYONE regardless of their ability to pay. Why would anyone want to stop a program that will help reduce the financial burdens on this community by providing a stabilizing influence in such a volatile market place?
    Mrs. Porters comments regarding the Hospitals tax status is especially short sighted, but that is not unusual. The jobs and revenue provided both directly and indirectly by having a hospital the size of FMH in this community are enormous and a critical part of our local economy. FMH is facing complicated and real challenges and has had to make some difficult and at time unpleasant choices regarding personal, staffing, and services, but they are trying desperately to keep this local hospital viable.
    I actually agree that there are elements of expanding Mainecare that are very troublesome and I think Mr. Churchill alluded to the point that this problem could and should have been addressed by legislation that could have handled this issue in a more comprehensive fashion, but that did not happen so here we are with a referendum. Hopefully, our community will do what is best for our community and not let selfishness and shortsighted ideas stand in the way.

  4. If this was only about healthcare…it’s not. The healthcare industry is big business and this is just good for the employees of that business. In the last ten years the insurance companies , hospital admins and Drs and pharmaceutical co’s have all had steady solid pay basically backed by the government.
    Meanwhile my monthly premiums have increased to the same amount as my mortgage! and my deductible is so high I have not been in years! This is the system they want to expand? Thanks for nothing
    .

  5. My mom always taught me -When in doubt go back to the basics-

    “The basic functions of the United States government are listed in the Constitution.
    They are:
    ‘To form a more perfect Union’;
    ‘To establish Justice’;
    ‘To insure domestic Tranquility’;
    ‘To provide for the common defense’;
    ‘To promote the general Welfare’; and
    ‘To secure the Blessings of Liberty.’ ”

    “State Government.
    Under the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, all powers not granted to the federal government are reserved for the states and the people. All state governments are modeled after the federal government and consist of three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial.”

    “CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF MAINE (as amended on the year of 1820)
    PREAMBLE:
    We the people of Maine, in order
    to establish justice,
    insure tranquility,
    provide for our mutual defense,
    promote our common welfare, and
    secure to our selves and our posterity the blessings of liberty,
    acknowledging with grateful hearts the goodness of the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe in affording us an opportunity, so favorable to the design; and, imploring His aid and direction in its accomplishment, do agree to form ourselves into a free and independent State, by the style and title of the STATE OF MAINE, and do ordain and establish the following Constitution for the government of the same……..”

    Like it or not folks -‘promote the general Welfare’ and ‘promote our common welfare’ exist in the constitution(s).

    Mainecare provides that. Someday you/me/we may need its assistance.
    Vote YES.

  6. I have no objection for some, the truly disabled, poverty ridden people to be helped, but it also allows able bodied people to latch on to it too. It, in fact, represents a great increase in welfare for the able bodied. Read and understand the “small print” in this bill.

    Remember, if you will, what happened after the King administration’s expansion of this sort of thing? The state was saddled with a debt of $750 million plus dollars to hospitals which the state had do come up with. Some hospitals were on the brink of bankruptcy because the state was unable or unwilling to pay the bill. Actually, the state used the debt as a way to avoid the requirement to balance the budget. They just let the debt ride and avoided it as an item in the budget. It took Governor LePage to clean up the mess.

    Like so many other referenda Maine has had in recent years did this referendum also originate out of state?

  7. The voters AND the people that represent them have called for Medicaid expansion MULTIPLE TIMES.

    LePage is the obstacle. His decisions in this case must be nullified. Vote YES on 2.

  8. Similar to the faction that demands the same or more services from the school district, the “NO”s don’t take into account that prices increase over a period of time.

    “Confluence of costs

    “That’s when the costs of expanding Medicaid services, rising health care charges, tight state budgets and a legal settlement the state paid out to 21 hospitals came to a head.

    “You can have a PIP system without huge debt,” Austin said. “What happened to us, they found the costs were growing, and they knew they wouldn’t have the money to pay the costs.”

    “But as more Medicaid patients started visiting the state’s 39 hospitals for treatment, the state didn’t adjust its weekly payouts accordingly. One reason was that the estimated payment system became less accurate as Medicaid enrollments grew, Downs said. Another reason was the state’s decision to cap those weekly payments to hospitals.

    “There was only so much in the budget to pay PIPs,” Downs said. “We had to cap the PIP because we couldn’t pay the full obligation.”

    https://bangordailynews.com/2013/03/08/the-point/maines-debt-to-hospitals-30-year-roots-decade-old-political-saga/?ref=relatedBox

  9. Medicaid and mainecare are totally different. Medicaid is for people 65 and older. Maine are is what is on the ballot. It is most definitely welfare expansion. The advertisements on the radio say that single moms struggling to buy groceries can get help. I find that very misleading. In fact just about everything in these articles and radio commercials are very misleading. I’ll be voting NO !!!

  10. Bill and Nancy do not represent the locals here, Mr. Churchill. Try not to listen to the trolls. There are plenty of readers who will take your good advice to the voting booth, those of us who believe rural Maine deserves excellent healthcare despite working lower wage jobs. People need to wake up and start voting or your local LePage Republicans will keep stepping to the mic to advocate stopping money coming in to our community. Get out and vote!

  11. Healthcare and health insurance are 2 different things. Mainecare is not nor was it ever meant to be government paid health insurance. The taxpayers do what they can, but asking them to help people other than the disabled is wrong.

  12. Well, there she goes again. Always No. No matter the issue. No matter rationale. Misinformation and nastiness. Looking out only for herself. Well, to work with her analogy, I do not live on her street. Never been on it. Yet my working person tax dollars help pay for her plowing, her sanding — picking up her slack. She benefits from my tax dollars, yet I receive no benefit. Yet I don’t begrudge it. Perhaps Always No wants to propose a user fee where she will foot the bill for plowing, sanding and road maintenance on her own. Question #2: Maine-Care/Medicaid is good for ALL of us: patients, our communities and our healthcare system. I’m voting YES.

  13. Lauri Sibulkin
    I bought my health insurance thru Derigo Health for years. When I move away I learned that I could not buy health insurance for any price anywhere due to age, accident history and past medical history. My wife and I fell thru the crack and stayed without health insurance for 3 years because the “Masters” and people like some of the above didn’t think that a life time of paying insurance means I get to continue buying it. The Affordable Health Care Act, with all its huge flaws, finally gave me a gate back into health insurance. It sounds like those that object to helping low wage earners get or keep health insurance might give going with out any insurance at all for a few years a try, and then see how you feel about the issue. One accident, one recurrence of skin cancer, one serious infection, and the low wage earner is no longer employable and on the State Welfare full time. That is a really lousy alternative!
    We as a nation pay for the super highway system, the military and the ridiculous benefit package all the politicians take for granted. Why is your Aunt Maggie or the clerk at Walmart less deserving of health care than you are with your apparently high wages or employer subsidised insurance? My Cobra insurance is $1,200 per month. My mortgage is only $785. This is crazy and unsustainable.
    Lauri Sibulki

  14. Three cheers for Referendum 2 . I believe we must pass it. We need to get all the citizens we can under the able efficient sympathetic control of the government’s health care system. The government’s record of granting heath care is splendid. Question 2 also includes a plan to give free health care to people who are healthy and able to work —that is great. I know a fellow who works, but is just getting by, and he gets paid under the table. Now he will get free health care too. That is charity. I am worried a bit about people like him who will actually not work as much now that his health care is paid for by the rich. Whatever!!! We can afford it. Just raise taxes. The rich can afford it. . That’s the solution. The government has to be careful this time not to bankrupt the hospitals of Maine, though. To those who put forward this referendum. Thank you !

  15. Medicaid expansion was tried once and failed proving to be to costlyfor the state.
    There has to be a better answer.Why return tto w hat
    has been tried in the past and failed I will also be voting NO on the expansion..

  16. Jesse
    – MaineCare IS Medicaid. In Maine we call Medicaid Maine Care

    Medicare is for those 65+ and disabled.

  17. Jesse Sillanpaa I think you have it wrong. The ins for people 65 and over is called MEDICARE not MEDICAID.

  18. Cut the health options for the poor working folks and they will have no other options but to stay poor and sick. The fact is we are not all born entitled with health, a solution to health care access needs to be in place.
    Nancy. I got you covered with every paycheck I work for and I’m okay with that, why aren’t you? Hope you don’t really think you arn’t benefiting from my hard work though social security and medicaid. Really, it’s all good. Let’s recapture some of my federal taxes for the state of Maine already.

  19. The only people happy with ACA are those who get it free, or nearly free, thanks to hefty subsidies from Medicaid, by whichever of its 50 names you call it. This dependence on another federal program was built in to Obamacare from the very beginning. In all its mind-numbing 2700 pages, there is not one word that suggests it could ever stand on its own.

    I turned eligible for Medicare in 2013, just before the government jackboot would have forced me to ACA. There are plenty of other blowhards posting here on this subject in a similar situation: Do as I say, not as I do.. This group appears split 50/50, like the rest of the country on nearly every issue. One half, including me, thinks the ACA is unConstitutional, at best; the other half, the one that likes to tell others what to think, wants desperately for everyone to accept it as gospel, for its ‘legacy’ value – there’s precious little else.

    The rich couldn’t care less. That leaves the middle class which, as usual, takes it in the neck. The typical family of 4, without subsidy, pays a premium of between $900 and $1500. Those who can afford that are then faced with a per-person per-year deductible of $3000 to $10000+! You’re covered! You just can’t afford to use your insurance.

    Of course, there are those in the middle class who get their health insurance ‘free’ from their employers. Except, with each passing year, it is less free with ever increasing co-pays and co-premiums and co-this and co-that.

    Expanding Medicaid is like the old poker mistake: throwing good money after bad.

  20. Stan Jonathan: I have been married over 50 years, and in those 50plus years I HAVE NEVER BEEN WITHOUT HEALTH CARE. Why? Because my husband and I made choices. We chose to pay for health care for ourselves and our kids. And because of his profession, we NEVER had health care paid for anyone but ourselves, until he went to work for Aramark. We then, for the first time in our lives, were able to buy into a health care program. It was a GIFT. A gift we truly appreciated, after spending hundreds of dollars a month on individual health care programs. Did we drive fancy cars? Nope. Did we have fancy clothes, or live in a fancy house? Not even close.
    It’s about CHOICES! People make all kinds of choices, some right, some not. Our choice was to buy health care. And we did.
    So after 50 years of paying for health care, we still do. Yes, we have Medicare, but we have an additional policy, which we pay for. So I find it frustrating when I hear people who “can’t afford health insurance” drive nice cars, or have fancy cell phones for the whole family, or lots of other luxuries. It’s choices. So why do the tax payers have to pay for people who choose not to pay for healthcare. And yes, I KNOW how expensive it is. And yes, I know there are some people who truly can’t afford it.
    But to expect the people to support people who make lousy choices is unconscionable. Period!
    I’m voting NO!

  21. The definition of insanity is; Doing the same thing over again and over again and expecting a different result.
    Remember who told us all; “You can keep your doctor” “This plan will lower your insurance cost” all while the creator of this insurance scam that ran our cost through the roof, said in private, “The public voters are stupid an will fall for this Affordable Care hook line and sinker”. Don’t get mad at the Governor of Maine for paying the bills and balancing the budget, get mad at the President who lied to all the ‘Poor’ Suckers who believed and voted him in office for a second term. Get upset at your Maine U.S. Senators who go to Washington and do nothing but join the ‘We get free insurance Club’ but all of you back in Maine who are suffering “we feel your pain”. All the while pretending to do the public business…..For once ..direct your anger in the right direction. We have got to stop using the Medical Credit Card again and demand more from our elected representatives and stop giving the needy families lip service and more debt. (Is that the Insurance Companies I hear laughing ?)

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