"Maine Legislative Council: Welfare Reform Out, Medicaid Expansion In" (MPBN)

[eShirl]

GO DEMS! chance I might not lose MaineCare after all...

https://www.mpbn.net/News/MPBNNews/tabid/1159/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3762/ItemId/30729/Default.aspx

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While Republicans stake their political reputations on welfare reform, Democrats want Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act to be their defining issue. Lawmakers passed such a bill and came close to overriding the governor's veto earlier this year, and House Speaker Mark Eves says his bill to reinstitute the expansion is necessary if Maine is going to avert a health care crisis.

"We are losing, come January first, $700,000 a day, and 25,000 Mainers are going to lose their health care come January 1," Eves says. "We have a great opportunity here and that is why I'm very excited about the effort to make sure that 70,000 Mainers have health care."

Republican State Chair Rick Bennett accused Eves and other Democratic leaders of violating legislative rules that say a bill can't be introduced twice in the same two-year legislative term.

But the rules also allow for emergency measures, and Eves says that if health care isn't an emergency in this state, he doesn't know what is.