In a series of votes last Tuesday, Republicans in Maine’s House and Senate didn’t just block an urgent supplemental budget measure to ensure health care providers get paid on time and protect Maine’s forests from pests. They also proposed a series of amendments, which would slash foundational supports for hundreds of thousands of Mainers.
Senate and House Republicans supported amendments which would:
- Limit housing assistance through the General Assistance program. Governor Mills originally put this proposal forward but later agreed that it could wait until the biennial budget. In Portland alone this would put an additional 600 people at risk of homelessness, according to Mayor Mark Dion.
- Cap enrollment in the MaineCare program, freezing any new applications for help. Vulnerable people who need help affording health care would no longer be able to apply. Under the Affordable Care Act, these individuals would also be ineligible for any federal assistance for private insurance, leaving them with nowhere to turn for coverage.
- Adding extra red tape for adults ages 19-64 in the MaineCare program without a dependent or a documented disability. While this extra paperwork is framed as a “work requirement,” the vast majority of adults in Medicaid programs are either working, looking for work, or prevented from working by a disability. As a result, so-called work requirements in other states have led to many people losing health care coverage, including those with jobs, largely because they are tripped up by the additional bureaucratic hoops.
Additionally, Republicans in the House supported measures to:
- Require state employees to pay their share of Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML). Like many private employers around the state competing for workers, the state of Maine and groups like the University of Maine System are paying employees’ share of the new PFML payroll tax. Requiring state employees to pay this amount themselves will undermine the state’s ability to attract and retain workers when it is already short-staffed in many departments.
- Make the new statewide PFML program optional for employers. As MECEP wrote previously, this would undermine the purpose and sustainability of the program. PFML functions as an insurance program, and the more people enrolled, the lower the costs are for everyone, because the risk is spread around.
- Repeal the free community college program. This program has helped thousands of recent high school and GED graduates attend college each year, improving their earning potential and strengthening our workforce without incurring the vast amount of debt which inhibits graduates’ future prospects. A separate amendment would limit the program to graduates of Maine high schools only.
Republican legislators also suggested addressing an urgent need in the MaineCare program that the Appropriations Committee failed to include in the supplemental budget. State law says Maine must update MaineCare payments every January 1, but the Mills Administration has not done this, even though money was set aside for it. The plan would make the state increase payments by 1.95% — the amount allocated in the last budget — and get any needed federal approvals. However, this is less than the 3.6% needed to match the rising minimum wage, as state law requires.
Except for a MaineCare COLA increase, the Republican proposals mostly cut programs that help people with health care, housing, and education. None of these demands have merit in their own right, let alone as reasons to delay important funding to health care providers and the state’s forestry industry. Lawmakers must pass the Supplemental Budget as soon as possible with bipartisan support.
