When it comes to expanding Medicaid, we have been there and done that. The results 15 years ago were disastrous. The state doubled the size of its Medicaid program, but this failed to reduce the uninsured rate, emergency-room visits or uncompensated care by hospitals. We were saddled with $750 million of Medicaid debt, and I spent my first two years as governor working to repay it.
By reforming Maine’s Medicaid and welfare programs, we directed resources toward the truly needy: elderly, disabled and extremely low-income Mainers. The Medicaid expansion now supported by Sens. Collins and King would open the program mostly to able-bodied people without children. These are not Maine’s most needy residents; providing them “free” health care is tantamount to giving them another welfare entitlement.
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