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You are here: Home / Anderson On Health Insurance / Maine Medicaid is a go

Maine Medicaid is a go

by David Anderson|  November 23, 20187:40 am| 22 Comments

This post is in: Anderson On Health Insurance

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The Portland Press Herald reports that a Maine judge has ordered Maine to expand Medicaid immediately.

Kennebec County Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy issued the order Wednesday, detailing seven steps the Maine Department of Health and Human Services must take to comply with the expansion law, which extends health care coverage to as many as 80,000 low-income Mainers. The law was approved by 59 percent of the state’s voters in November 2017, but LePage repeatedly has blocked implementation by vetoing legislation to fund the expansion and refusing to take administrative steps….

Murphy’s order, retroactive to July 2, requires the DHHS to file an amendment to paperwork already submitted to the federal government. The amendment must state that there are no legal or constitutional grounds for delaying the expansion. In the initial paperwork filed by the DHHS, during a process known as a state plan amendment or SPA, the LePage administration urged the federal Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services to reject the state’s application.

If this order is not stayed by the Maine appellate courts, then a straight forward expansion with no work requirements will begin almost immediately with retroactive claims being paid for services that happened during the summer.

For the people who make too much for legacy Medicaid and too little for subsidies, this is wonderful news in Maine.

 

 

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Reader Interactions

22Comments

  1. 1.

    satby

    November 23, 2018 at 7:45 am

    Happy for those folks in Maine.

  2. 2.

    rikyrah

    November 23, 2018 at 7:51 am

    Yeah for Maine??

  3. 3.

    Victor Matheson

    November 23, 2018 at 8:17 am

    Actually, the best news would be if the court ordered the arrest of LePage for violating state law by refusing to implement the Maine constitution like ordered to by Maine’s voters. But Medicaid expansion is a nice second.

  4. 4.

    Ben Cisco

    November 23, 2018 at 8:35 am

    Great news. Congrats to the people of Maine.

  5. 5.

    BretH

    November 23, 2018 at 8:40 am

    Tell me again why LePage isn’t in handcuffs awaiting trial for blatantly breaking the law??

  6. 6.

    laura

    November 23, 2018 at 8:56 am

    @BretH: because IOKIYAR.

  7. 7.

    OzarkHillbilly

    November 23, 2018 at 8:58 am

    @Victor Matheson: The best news would be if LePage got too close to a Floriduh gator and everybody watching the ensuing tussle cheered for the gator.

  8. 8.

    Mary G

    November 23, 2018 at 9:10 am

    Three cheers for the rule of law and progressive victory!

  9. 9.

    Amir Khalid

    November 23, 2018 at 9:20 am

    Lawlessness in high office does seem to be a Republican thing, especially when the law gets in the way of what a Republican wants to do. If LePage would rather go to jail than do as the people of his state rightly command, give him what he wants: jail him.

  10. 10.

    Villago Delenda Est

    November 23, 2018 at 9:46 am

    LePage needs to go to jail for this bullshit.

  11. 11.

    Victor Matheson

    November 23, 2018 at 9:58 am

    @Amir Khalid: I am not sure we can jail LePage at this point. I mean does the United States even have an extradition treaty with Florida?

  12. 12.

    Haroldo

    November 23, 2018 at 10:07 am

    @Victor Matheson: @OzarkHillbilly:

    As a former Mainer,
    I would cheer on the ‘gator.

    P.S. Even if I did not have Maine connections, I’d be a ‘gator backer, just on general principles.

  13. 13.

    MomSense

    November 23, 2018 at 10:10 am

    David do you know if there is a deadline for people to apply? I’m wondering if people have to apply before the end of open enrollment.

  14. 14.

    Frankensteinbeck

    November 23, 2018 at 10:32 am

    LePage repeatedly has blocked implementation by vetoing legislation to fund the expansion and refusing to take administrative steps

    The pettiness and cruelty is breathtaking, isn’t it? It’s not like there’s any even close to legitimate reason to fight this hard. For Republicans, hurting people has become the only moral imperative they understand. I’ve watched this up close all my life, but every once in awhile I stop and look with fresh eyes and it hits me again just how deranged actions like LePage’s are.

  15. 15.

    WereBear

    November 23, 2018 at 10:34 am

    @Frankensteinbeck: For Republicans, hurting people has become the only moral imperative they understand.

    I always wondered how the Third Reich managed to find so many people devoid of human compassion… I’m starting to get it.

  16. 16.

    Geoboy

    November 23, 2018 at 10:36 am

    Lock him up!

  17. 17.

    Miss Bianca

    November 23, 2018 at 10:48 am

    @Frankensteinbeck: It is amazing. My friend Jeff Dorchen wrote a play back in the early 90s called “Ugly’s First World”, which concerns the jail break of a trio of damned souls from Hell. We find out that in Hell everyone gets reduced to one basic awful trait of theirs, so our three “heroes” are Ugly, Stupid, and Cruel.

    And that’s all I see when I look at modern Republicans. Ugly, stupid, and cruel. Without the benefit of any of the singing or witty banter that my friend Jeff came up with.

  18. 18.

    TomatoQueen

    November 23, 2018 at 10:59 am

    Glad for Maine, especially the bit about no work requirements. Something ugly and dangerous in that regard, but so far unspecified, is coming for Virginia, and I’m not amused. Also, too, all the goo-goo starry-eyed breathless sainting of our gov, Ralph Northam, is ever-so-slowly-but-could-be-surely undermined by rumbling about behind the scenes nefarious behavior with regard to fracking, pipelines, and that hole of vileness Old Dominion. The reports so far are not WaPo but tiny yips and screeches out of Richmond, which might as well be the moon. Meanwhile, tho’, glad for Maine.

  19. 19.

    Mike in NC

    November 23, 2018 at 11:05 am

    Fat Bastard will appoint LePage to be his new Chief of Staff or something similar. Bank on that.

  20. 20.

    Haroldo

    November 23, 2018 at 11:12 am

    @WereBear:

    I always wondered how the Third Reich managed to find so many people devoid of human compassion… I’m starting to get it.

    The phenomenon is real, isn’t it? It’s measurable. I am still foundering on ‘Why’. That’s what I don’t get.

  21. 21.

    Yutsano

    November 23, 2018 at 11:18 am

    @Mike in NC: No way. LePage is ugly as sin. The reality show president would never let him on screen.

  22. 22.

    David Anderson

    November 23, 2018 at 1:27 pm

    A thought for next week: as Maine will be retroactively expanding Medicaid to 7/2/18… Are people insured if they do not know they are insured?

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