Maine Medicaid expansion vote seen as Obamacare referendum
On
The ballot measure comes after
It also acts as a bookend to a year in which President
Activists on both sides of the issue are looking at the initiative, Maine Question 2, as a sort of national referendum on one of the key pillars of the law, commonly known as Obamacare. Roughly 11 million people nationwide have gained coverage through the expansion of Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for lower-income Americans.
Republican consultant
"People believe there are good parts to Obamacare and bad parts to Obamacare. And without taking Medicaid expansion, we are leaving one of the good parts on the table while still suffering from the bad parts of it," said Dutson, who supports Question 2.
If the initiative passes, an estimated 70,000 people in
Nature painter
She worries about having another serious health problem before she is eligible for Medicare when she turns 65 next year.
"Some of the after-effects of the chemo can be severe, like heart failure," she said. "Having no insurance is really scary."
Among those who say
She remembers watching as her son's eyes went hollow and his body turned skeletal in the weeks before he died, at age 25, from a diabetic coma a year ago.
"He had a job, but he didn't make enough money to pay for his basic needs and his insulin, and he couldn't live without his insulin," said Miller, who lives in
LePage, a Trump supporter, is lobbying furiously against the initiative. He and other critics warn that the expansion will be too costly for
LePage warns that he would have to divert
"It's going to kill this state," he said.
LePage said he considers Medicaid another form of welfare and wants to require recipients to work and pay premiums.
If Question 2 passes, the Medicaid expansion would cover adults under age 65 with incomes at or below 138 percent of the federal poverty level. That's
State Rep.
"I get accused on occasion of trying to pit one population of folks against another," she said. "It's a case of only having a certain amount of resources to take care of a large number of needs."
Finances are a concern in a state marked by factory closures and sluggish wage growth.
But with more people living on the margins, advocates of the expansion say that is all the more reason to extend the benefits of Medicaid. About 8 percent of
Democratic Sen.
"They are just as good people as you or I, but their lives will be shorter and they will be sicker," he said. "Compassion, common sense and our economic interest demand that we get them the health care they need."
The couple run a computer business and rely on herbal teas and locally grown greens to stay healthy as they fall in and out of Medicaid eligibility. LePage restricted Medicaid eligibility for adults with dependents, like the Arrudas.
"There have absolutely been times when my husband or I have put off getting something looked at that we probably should have because we didn't have coverage," Arruda said.
In Miller's view, her son would still be alive if LePage had signed one of the Medicaid expansion bills sent to him by the Legislature.
When Kyle turned 21, he was one of thousands who lost MaineCare coverage under the governor's reforms. She said he juggled construction jobs but couldn't afford his
He struggled to pay medical bills from emergency room visits, Miller said.
Before Kyle died last November, he had landed a steady job at a plastics factory that promised health insurance. He didn't live long enough to get the coverage, falling into a diabetic coma.
"He started rationing his insulin so he could buy food," his mother said. "And it cost him his life."
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