Paul LePage: Economic Facts Don't Care About Fantastic Initiatives

Election 2017 in Maine, and the voters approved by 60% the Medicaid Expansion in the Affordable Care Act. This is more welfare, but on steroids, since single, able-bodied adults without dependents will be able to solicit government subsidized health insurance without working.

This is wrong, this is destructive, and this proposal is unaffordable.

Governor Paul LePage reminded voters that nothing is free, and therefore he would not expand the program as long as there was no money to do so.

Her was his email press release blasting any decision to expand Medicaid without first ensuring that funding was readily available--and without raising taxes or destroying the state budget in the process.

Governor LePage Issues Statement on Medicaid Expansion For Immediate Release: Wednesday, November 8, 2017 Contact: Julie Rabinowitz, Press Secretary, 207-287-2531 AUGUSTA – Governor Paul R. LePage has issued a statement in response to Mainers approving a referendum that will cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars to give “free” health care to working-age, able-bodied adults, most of whom do not have dependents. “The last time Maine experimented with Medicaid expansion in 2002 under then-governor Angus King, it created a $750 million debt to hospitals, resulted in massive budget shortfalls every year, did not reduce emergency room use, did not reduce the number of uninsured Mainers and took resources away from our most vulnerable residents—the elderly and the intellectually and physically disabled,” said Governor LePage. “Credit agencies are predicting that this fiscally irresponsible Medicaid expansion will be ruinous to Maine’s budget. Therefore, my administration will not implement Medicaid expansion until it has been fully funded by the Legislature at the levels DHHS has calculated, and I will not support increasing taxes on Maine families, raiding the rainy day fund or reducing services to our elderly or disabled.”