Updated 3/13/2025
At a glance:
- Maine Senate Republicans agreed on a budget to help health care and forestry — the state has extra funds to cover these costs — but then they wanted changes that could cut important programs
- A new version of the supplemental budget included limits on General Assistance, a small pay raise for health care workers, and an investigation into Medicaid spending
- After agreeing to the changes, most Senate Republicans still voted against the budget, stopping it from passing
- Without funding, forests could lose protection from harmful insects, and health care providers might struggle to pay for patient care
On Tuesday, Maine Senate Republicans seemed poised to finally agree to pass a supplemental budget proposal that includes urgent payments to health care providers for MaineCare services and preventative forestry work in Maine’s commercial forests. Although the budget proposal had initially received unanimous support in the Appropriations Committee in February, Republicans backtracked and demanded a slew of additional concessions that would cut programs Mainers depend on. In a second round of votes on Thursday, Senate Republicans maintained their opposition to the bill, and it died after failing to get enough votes for passage.
The Senate Republican maneuver could have severe consequences:
- Trees must be sprayed for budworm before June to stop the larvae from growing. This spraying would protect 300,000 acres of spruce-fir forests. If the budworms spread too much, they could cause up to $794 million in damage.
- If Maine doesn’t pay health care providers soon, they’ll have to cover the costs themselves, and many can’t afford it. Even big hospitals only have enough money to last a few days. Nursing homes and free clinics have it even worse. Without more funding, the state will stop payments on March 12. MECEP previously found this delay will hurt Republican legislative districts the most since more people there rely on MaineCare.
After several failed attempts to pass the legislation with the necessary two-thirds in each legislative chamber, Senate President Mattie Daughtry put forward an amendment Tuesday that addressed three GOP concerns by:
- Limiting the amount of General Assistance Mainers could receive to a maximum of 12 months in any 36-month period — a smaller cut than 3 months in a 12-month period proposed by Republicans and Governor Janet Mills that would have led to hundreds of individuals becoming homeless. While the full impact of the new proposal is not yet known, it would still take away the last lifeline from some of the most vulnerable Mainers.
- Partially restoring cost-of-living-allowances owed to direct care workers and other health care providers in some MaineCare programs. The amendment would require the state to implement a 1.95% increase to MaineCare rates before March 31. While this will help health care workers, it is less than the 3.5% increase required by law on January 1 to offset the impact of inflation.
- Requiring an independent investigation of “fraud, waste and abuse” within the MaineCare program. Studies generally show very low rates of waste in state Medicaid programs, which also have lower administrative costs on average than private health care plans.
A majority of Republicans in the House and Senate both voted to add the amended language to the supplemental budget, and while most House Republicans also voted to approve the newly amended version of the bill, nearly all Senate Republicans flipped their votes against the bill with the amendment they had recently approved. As a result, the supplemental budget had two-thirds votes necessary in the House but not the Senate. With the chambers disagreeing on the outcome on Thursday, the bill officially “died.”
It’s important to note that everything in the supplemental budget would have been paid for with surplus funds. The state is taking in more revenue than was anticipated when it wrote the last biennial budget, so there is money available to address these extra costs. Republicans’ push for cuts to General Assistance and MaineCare is, at best, tangential to the question of the supplemental budget. If they wish to push for savings, the biennial budget would be a more appropriate vehicle than the supplemental, which is designed to deal with the remaining three months of this fiscal year only.
While the bill may be dead, the urgent issues remain, and lawmakers will have to revisit them in a new supplemental budget or as part of the larger biennial budget. The supplemental budget was about paying bills we’ve already incurred with money we have in hand. Yet Republican lawmakers have already caused a one-month delay to urgent statewide funding needs and which they ultimately failed to support, even after extracting concessions that would hurt Maine families when they are at their most vulnerable. Enough is enough. To minimize further harm to Maine’s health care and forestry sectors, Senate Republicans must see sense and agree to fund these needs as soon as possible.
