Even on those rare occasions when he’s being sort of reasonable, Republican Gov. Paul LePage somehow manages to come off as totally unreasonable.
It’s a talent.
Take Medicaid expansion for example. Voters approved it in referendum in early November by a substantial margin, a stunning rebuke to LePage who had vetoed similar measures five times. A less strident personality might have conceded that it was time to open negotiations on how best to implement the law.
But that ain’t the LePage way.
The guv issued a defiant statement: “Credit agencies are predicting that this fiscally irresponsible Medicaid expansion will be ruinous to Maine’s budget. Therefore, my administration will not implement Medicaid expansion until it has been fully funded by the Legislature at the levels [the Department of Health and Human Services] has calculated, and I will not support increasing taxes on Maine families, raiding the rainy day fund or reducing services to our elderly or disabled.”
As was undoubtedly intended by LePage, this mini-rant was interpreted by Democrats and other excitable opponents as indicating he’d defy the will of the voters and refuse to implement the law. Predictably, angst, outrage and threats of lawsuits ensued.
But LePage didn’t quite say what they claimed he said. If you run his statement through a digital de-antagonizer, thereby rendering it in language more appropriate for Bruce Banner than the Incredible Hulk, here’s what you get:
“Jeez, this thing might cost us $54 million a year, so to be fiscally responsible, we’ve got to figure out where that’s going to come from. You know the votes aren’t there in the Legislature to raise taxes, raid our emergency funds or cut other social service programs. So, let’s get together and discuss where else we might be able to find that money.”
OK, that last sentence is even more of a fabrication than the rest of this fantasy. LePage never negotiates stuff like this. His preferred method of dealing with difficult issues is to shift responsibility to other people, while he devotes his time to sulking.
That’s childish, but it doesn’t change the governor’s essential point: The state can’t expand Medicaid unless it finds the money to pay its share of the cost. But that shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. Democrats were well aware of that annual price tag when they were campaigning for the referendum question, so they must be prepared to cover this expense.
They wouldn’t have ignored something so obvious, would they?
Uh … yeah, they would.
House Assistant Majority Leader Jared Golden, who’s also a candidate for Congress in the 2nd District, went on WGAN radio right after the election and was asked the obvious question: How are you going to pay for this? Golden sounded as if that concept was sort of alien.
“There’s money available right now,” he said, claiming the state would run a big surplus this year, although even if that’s true, the money wouldn’t be “available right now.”
Golden hastily shifted ground. “I don’t think it’s a question of whether or not we can afford to do it,” he said. “We certainly can.”
Because saying that makes it so.
Maine Democratic Party chairman Phil Bartlett was on WGAN shortly thereafter. He, too, hadn’t done his homework. Pressed as to where the cash was going to come from, he went all squishy. “The Legislature has said five times we can afford this,” Bartlett tried.
The Legislature says lots of stupid things.
“This is not a huge part of the budget,” he offered. “This is a tiny piece.”
So is an O ring, but try running your space shuttle without it.
Finally, Bartlett conceded, “So, you look at the rainy-day fund.”
For the record, the rainy-day fund, the state’s emergency stash of cash to be used in the event of a recession or other disaster, contains less than $200 million. That won’t cover the cost of this program for even four years.
Don’t get me wrong. I voted to expand Medicaid. I think it will keep rural hospitals in business and provide health care to 70,000 additional people, thanks to a huge infusion of federal money. But each year, the state has to pay its share, too, and that requires a reliable funding source. Democrats need to deliver on the difficult part of their promise by finding one.
LePage and I both demand it.
I just say it in a more reasonable way.
Which isn’t too difficult.
Nigerian princes email me all the time at aldiamon@herniahill.net. You can, too.
This is a bad deal for Maine. We don’t need more people on welfare roles. We need more people working and buying there own insurance. We need to find a cheaper way to make insurance more affordable not give give give all the time.
Most of the people that this expansion would cover are working people not welfare recipients. Their jobs don’t offer insurance or they’re self-employed. Either way, their income FROM WORKING is too high to qualify for Medicaid/Mainecare and too low to purchase insurance for themselves or their family. I’ve been in this boat after getting laid off from my job of 17 years. My whole family was covered under my health insurance from my job. My husband’s job did not offer insurance and suddenly our family of four was making too much (from his job) to qualify for MaineCare. We missed the cutoff to qualify by $1000. If this expansion had been in place we would have qualified. These are the folks the expansion aims to cover. It’s not to expand the welfare roles.
mitra
The millions of dollars to fund this program comes from taxpayers. If its not welfare what would you call it? like I will continue to emphasize we need to have cheaper insurance for the working class to buy not get it for free.
sammy…. it might be called robbery… taking my money and giving it to someone else…
@ glen: Try THIS for robbery.
“The CBO reported that the Republican tax plan will RAISE TAXES on any American making less than $75,000.
ALL benefits of this plan will go to the richest Americans (paid for by a tax increase on working Americans).”
https://www.metro.us/news/the-big-stories/trump-tax-plan-raise-taxes-poorest
It was the decision to expand Medicaid under King and Baldacci without agreement on how to pay for it that led to the unconstitutional hospital debt.
The problem with socialism(and even democratic socialism) is that eventually you run out of other people’s money (Margaret Thatcher)
or,for millenial and progressive ears: Socialism is not sustainable(even democratic socialism).
Looking forward to the Democratic gubernatorial and 2nd CD primaries for sheer entertainment value.
@ Jon Reisman: Go back 3-4 years and re-read the story of how/why the problem of paying for the hospital debt occurred. It wasn’t just because Medicaid was expanded. The systems to make payments were flawed, adjustments were not made as enrollments increased, etc.
https://bangordailynews.com/2013/03/08/the-point/maines-debt-to-hospitals-30-year-roots-decade-old-political-saga/?ref=relatedBox
Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. Maine’s finances where a mess “before” Lepage was elected for the job.
Another thing I would like to say is just because you are self employed doesn’t mean you should get subsidized healthcare. After they write everything off they show very little income… our priorities are skewed a bit in today’s society…for example yesterday I was talking with some folks with $1000 I-phone looking up their balance for food assistance and balance on welfare accounts. Yet we’re paying for their health insurance. That’s just plain crazy
After running Al’s rant through the de-antagonizer it becomes clear that deep down he knows LePage is right and the democrats are incompetent and irresponsible.
captain planet, sammy, jon
you hit the nail on the head. Lepage has done a great job to get our state finances in order!!! And he is
still fighing his hardest to keep the liberal spenders in check. Let’s hope the voters remember this next
election cycle.
The Senate tax bill allows individuals not to buy health insurance. How does that take money out of the pockets of the poor? It doesn’t. It simply means they have the option to avoid buying insurance, which means that they wouldn’t take advantage of tax subsidies — but the CBO counts this as a tax increase, since revenue to the Treasury would increase through a drop in payouts. And a huge number of those who would be dropping out of the insurance program are supposedly on Medicaid — which means they won’t drop out at all, since Medicaid is basically free.
How the Lepage helped put the numbers in his order: http://www.sunjournal.com/state-funding-for-maines-public-schools-declined-9-percent-from-2008-to-2015/
Per Al: “…each year, the state has to pay its share, too, and that requires a reliable funding source.”
And so LePage decides he didn’t like what the voters wanted in order to fund education in 2016 and nullified their vote.
No tax increase on the wealthy.
If this is allowed again and again, Maine won’t ever get out of its economic hole.
What a bunch of whiners! It should be an honor to pay for the top notch health care for LePage and his extended family. That not enough for you ingrates?
@Its in the Numbers: The link you provided tells the same old story…a sad one.
“State funding for Maine’s public schools declined 9 percent from 2008 to 2015”
The biggest problem with “Obamacare” is people think it’s supposed to be like socialized health care. That is completely false because socialized health care doesn’t require certain people to pay the bill for the rest of the population. I totally agree with the Governor on this ban until the democrats that want to keep spending other people’s mkney can do so without taking more out of my pocket and any other taxpayers. Don’t forget if Maine doesn’t cover there share FIRST the federal government pays $0.
So much blame and so little recognition that it takes two to make a mess.
” The biggest problem with “Obamacare” is people think it’s supposed to be like socialized health care. That is completely false because socialized health care doesn’t require certain people to pay the bill for the rest of the population. ” -Jesse Sillanpaa
Exaggerate much? Statements that have no real bearings and meaning, other than to pass all the blame on your target, that is the biggest problem. At least be sarcastic or something, your opinion just comes off like so much of the rot and decay of the mind, and that is a problem. Check you if your Health insurance is part of a private industry chain. Pharmaceutical suppliers of both medicine and all the medical equipment and everything from overpriced tooth paste and pillows to disposable surgical tools are for profit business. Medicare recipients never hold any taxpayer cash. That means our “welfare” tax dollars are mostly benefiting private corporations and share holders. Hospitals see enough to function and just pass the tax buck to private vendors and pay light bills.
Shareholders use the title “Share holder” instead of their names so they don’t have to accept responsibility for telling sick people that they want more money just because. Fix the price of medical stuff and I’m sure you would ruffle the deck but we all know that’s NOT how a capitalist country works, prices go up but almost never go down. The new tax reform at a government level favors even more shifting of our tax base on the working class so please remember who is running the show when you get hit with product inflation and higher fed taxes next year.
“This is a bad deal for Maine. We don’t need more people on welfare roles. We need more people working and buying there own insurance. We need to find a cheaper way to make insurance more affordable not give give give all the time.” – Sammy
I agree, we do need more full time working Mainers and we need to make health care more affordable but that will never happen when we leave it to business as usual thinking. My insurance agents drive nice cars, own lots of property and eat at fancy restaurants every week and they are just a middle man between services and payouts … but they do handle my checks. The average 4 person home would need to make 30-50K just to pay for a one year policy granted they don’t have preexisting conditions. You would need make double that just to support your other household expenses but most people accept barely over min wage jobs just under 40 hours a week so their employer doen’t have to consider them full time. Go figure, you gotta do what you gotta do.
You want affordable health insurance then there needs to be a major systematic change, a complete over hall of everything from policies to products purchased and resold at the hospitals. Unfortunately we cant even take care of each other before ourselves, we can get over blaming each other rather than researching and discussing practical and intelligent solutions that are actually possible. None of these comments even make a difference. People are gotta do what they gotta do. Good luck.