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Maine people should be proud. Led by our senior U.S. senator, Susan Collins, Maine’s senators joined their House counterparts in opposing HR 1, otherwise known as One Big Beautiful Bill. As Collins noted in her press statement, the bill could dramatically reduce the Medicaid funding needed to support the health of Maine people and the hospitals and other health care providers who serve them.
Maine’s hospitals are in a precarious financial position today. Reductions to Medicaid will exacerbate an already difficult situation. Maine’s nonprofit hospitals are being forced to make difficult decisions as they try to balance meeting their missions to provide access to care to all, regardless of ability to pay, with their financial realities. Increases in charity care as people lose coverage and reductions in payments as federal support to Maine diminishes will have real consequences.
We are grateful to Sen. Collins for her leadership under very difficult circumstances, and to Sen. Angus King and Reps. Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden, all of whom strongly opposed the bill and expressed grave concern about its impact on access to rural health care in Maine. We ask that our delegation remain steadfast in its opposition to cuts to Medicaid programs that are vital to the health of Maine people.
Katie Fullam Harris
Yarmouth