Human Services/Health Insurance Rate Reform
Policy:
1. General Assistance Reform
2. MaineCare Sustainability and the Fallacy of a Backdoor to Single-Payer Healthcare Insurance
3. MaineCare Reimbursement
4. Hospital and Provider Reimbursement
5. Child Protective Services to Adopt “Walk a Mile in their Shoes” Report
6. Ratepayer Reform
7. Maine's Certificate of Need Debacle
Rationale:
Maine’s General Assistance program unfairly targets rural Maine as a source of funds, with little benefit to the towns in return. The General Assistance program will be adjusted to make the system work for all municipalities, not simply larger cities. The welfare state is alive and well in Maine and must be addressed immediately through education and labor training initiatives.
MaineCare, Maine’s Medicaid system for families in need will not be a political football. There is a two-sided problem to MaineCare that needs to be addressed. First, we in the United States developed a system where Medicaid policyholders subject their service providers to a lower reimbursement rate. This is a form of structural discrimination, as MaineCare coverage automatically makes the holder a second-class citizen in healthcare settings. Some providers don’t even accept Medicaid patients. The other part of the two-sided problem is the massive expansion of MaineCare since 2019. People on the left-side of this issue refuse to reform MaineCare. Work requirements for able-bodied people has been a part of welfare regulation at the state and national levels for decades. Some oppose work requirements, but in reality, work opportunities give hope and purpose to Maine citizens and families.
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Maine is the same size as New Hampshire, yet we have more than double the number of MaineCare enrollees. MaineCare has been used by politicians as a backdoor path to single-payer healthcare, instead of adequately covering those in need. This has caused the implosion of hospitals, nursing homes, birthing centers, group homes, mental health facilities, and many other provider entities. Providers and Maine citizens know full-well that the low rate of reimbursement combined with the explosion in enrollees in MaineCare to approximately 405,000 Mainers has caused the system breakdown. MaineCare is Medicaid. Medicaid is for people in need. Working with Congress, Maine will market other subsidized insurance mechanisms to humanly transition single Mainers without children who are currently enrolled in MaineCare.
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Maine’s Child Protective Services will be under strict orders to seek safer placements for children in state custody. Many children have died while in the custody of the State of Maine. As recently as June of 2025, a child died in Lewiston following several direct warnings to the department from citizens who had knowledge of the dangers involved with this placement. As in the past, nothing was done to protect that child.
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The privately-issued “Walk a Mile in Their Shoes” report, authored by former Secretary of State and State Senator Bill Diamond is an excellent starting point for positive policy reform. We will seek more assistance from experts from outside the department, and set challenging progress benchmarks for our employees to follow.
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In 2026, you will need a governor who is able to prevent a health insurance implosion.
The legacy of Obamacare will soon be a massive escalation in premiums. This will of course be driven by federal and state public funding constraints. The outcome is now on our doorstep.
We expect to know even more about rate escalation soon, but unfortunately, we are all in for a big increase. The problem emanates from over-reliance on static public funds currently used to maintain family health insurance for too many public-dollar healthcare recipients. Much of the coming rate increase will target private insurance suppliers, and this time it is not going to be a simple double-digit increase for families. The bottom line is thousands of dollars more in premiums for family coverage. In other words, the big increase in premiums required for individuals to add family members to insurance coverage is about to make coverage unaffordable for both the public and the private sector.
The best solution is to enable small businesses in Maine to provide private health insurance for employees, and to return to previous efforts to grow health savings accounts by providing incentives. This private-sector approach comes from income primarily generated by workers who generate innovation and value-added dollars in the private sector.
Now is the time to begin to rebuild the nation’s savings rate to ward off the devastating consequences of the 20-year gravitation toward socialized medicine. When adding the 405,000 Maine citizens that are on MaineCare to the people utilizing Medicare plus citizens receiving forms of public coverage through public education and government sector jobs, it appears that Maine is in the most vulnerable position in the entire nation.
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Remember, when the health insurance problems grow, hospital and provider care is damaged. We are already seeing closures and increasing geographic rationing of care here in Maine. Senator Libby warned about this. Governor Libby will take action. We must deal with this difficult situation right now, in a federal-state partnership.
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For example, the Libby for Governor campaign believes that barriers to entry are a big problem in Maine, starting with an ill-conceived Certificate of Need (CON) program. While Maine has scaled back some parts of CON, New Hampshire has fully eliminated the practice, and for good reason. Why should incumbent hospitals be meddling in the purchase of equipment by competitors? Why should new capital expansion for major medical equipment be legally opposed? Restricting supply in any way drives up costs, and quietly suburban and rural medical service providers will tell you that CON drives up expansionary equipment costs way up.
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Federal government shutdowns that threaten food benefits such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) program are immoral. Food should not be used as leverage to make gains in other policy areas. We know that 12.5% of Mainers currently receive SNAP benefits. The Libby Administration's goal will be to drive that number down to below 10%, not by recommending cuts to the program, but through economic changes and training that promote self-sufficiency.
