A lot happened in Maine politics last week. This week committees will be finishing up their work and full session days will begin in the House and Senate. All of this work will come down to the last days when the budget must be voted in. For the budget to pass, 2/3rds of the members of the House and Senate must vote for it. Will that happen? With what happened over the past week, right now it is not looking good.

Senator Mason Does What?

You have to read this to believe it. Our new rural Androscoggin Senator seems to think that he is not only a Senator but a dictator who can censor our First Amendment right of free speech. During the recent public hearing on privatizing Maine’s prison’s, Mason ruled citizens out of order for using the words slavery and racism. Senator Mason maybe you need to go back to school to learn the United States Constitution. American citizens have the right to assemble and to speak freely. Read the article here.

Budget Change Package

The budget change package is now out. I am sure that many of you already know some of the details. The Governor has decided to put the state employee retiring age back to 62, but the 2% cost shifting has not been changed. Appropriations will be taking up pensions on Monday, May 16th.

Some of the funding for the mental health/substance abuse facilities has been put back in the budget. Except for the funding for the only substance abuse rehab facility for women in the state. As it stands, this funding has been taken out. If the budget passes as it is, Crossroads for Women will close. This is very unfortunate as they do great work and have helped many women get back on their feet to live a productive life again. If this is a concern to you, please contact your state rep, senator or a member of Appropriations to let them know how you feel.

The change package removes funding for 30,000 low income Mainer’s on MaineCare. This throws non-categorical adults and the parents of children receiving the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) out of the system. Most of these people are parents earning $10,000 or less a year and trying to support a family. There is no way they will be able to afford any type of health insurance. What happens if they get sick? They will go to the ER, get treated, and not be able to pay. This creates a whole new problem for hospitals throughout the state. How is this helping the people of Maine? It’s not helping the people or business.

The budget removes the Drugs for the Elderly program which hurts more than 33,000 elderly in the state. Many seniors are barely getting by now. Why have them make the choice between feeding themselves or taking the medication that they need to survive? This is terrible, especially since the funding for this program has come from the Fund for a Healthy Maine which is tobacco settlement money. It is not coming from the General Fund! Why do this to our elderly? This is just plain wrong!

Health Care Bill

Last week we talked a little about LD 1333 and how the Republicans didn’t know what was in the bill, but they were still trying to push it through. On the evening of Thursday, May 12, the bill was debated in the House and Senate and the sparks were flying. In the House and Senate, Republicans didn’t answer specific questions about the bill. Democrats proposed many amendments and each one was killed by the Republicans with no explanation. An amendment proposed by Senator Diamond did get passed in the Senate.

Here is an overview of LD 1333 as it stands with the Senate amendment:

• It does not fix the Rule 850 travel restriction problem. What this means is that policyholders can still go to their local provider instead of the recommended far away provider if they choose. If they do this they will have to pay out of pocket! And, there are no limits as to how far a policyholder will have to travel for their care.
• The amended bill does not fix the issue of rate spikes caused by living in a rural area. Many Mainer’s would see their rates rise hundreds of dollars, not including the premium tax that all policyholders will have to pay!
• The cap on the tax that policyholders have to pay could be an increase of $72/year or as much as $288/year for a family of four. (State employees and Legislators would be exempt from this.)
  The bill eliminates the State Health Plan and Health Care Cost-Control Advisory Commission (ACHSD). This is strange to me. Why do they want to eliminate this? Perhaps so there is no oversight and in the future insurance companies can charge whatever they choose to? This is good for them, but bad for Mainer’s!
• It also removes consumer representation from the Reinsurance Pool Board. Boy, this is really looking good for the insurance companies, isn’t it?
• Although the amended bill restored guaranteed issue, policies could be rescinded or claims rejected because of disputes over your health status questionnaire. This is made worse by allowing new prior authorization provisions to be added without the Board of Insurance’s review or approval. This is just a nightmare waiting to happen. We have all had issues with prior authorization. It sounds to me like this lets the insurance company make decisions about whether or not you should be authorized. Correct me if I am wrong here, but I thought the whole goal of changing health care was to put the decisions in the hands of your doctor and you? This does the opposite.

Please contact your Legislators or write a letter to the editor to ask Maine to slow down on LD 1333. We all know the system is broken, but let’s take the time to do it correctly. This bill would not go into affect until 2013, let’s do it right!

MPBN Funding

The Governors budget is now proposing to completely cut funding for MPBN. This is a personal attack from the Governor to MPBN. Remember the Governors riff with Ajay Higgins? How about when Susan Sharon reported the story on the Governors “buffalo study”? Dirigo Blue has a great overview of why the Governor wants to get rid of MPBN’s funding. Check it out here.

Voter ID Bills

LD 199, which requires voters to show a photo ID at the polls is coming out of committee with a divided report. This means it will make it to the House floor. I would expect that this bill will pass as it is a partisan issue and the Republicans have the majority. This bill hurts the voting process as many citizens will show up to vote, not have their id and even though the voting clerk may know them, the citizen will have to leave to get their id. You and I both know that many will not return to vote. Like I said before this bill comes from the conspiracy theory that Maine has a lot of election day voter fraud and that is simply not true. (Crafts-Lisbon, Espling-New Gloucester, Knight-Livermore Falls, Timberlake-Turner, Wood-Sabattus are all co-sponsors of this bill.)

The Secretary of State’s bill, LD 1376, restricting people from registering on voting day was heard on Friday, May 13th, and has not been reported out yet.

Women’s Rights

All three abortion bills were voted ought not to pass by the Judiciary Committee. They were divided reports so I suspect that there will be floor debates on all three.

Fireworks

Rep. Mike Lajoie (D-Lewiston) was at Saturday’s Listening Session in Lewiston. He is on the Criminal Justice Committee that heard the fireworks bills. He had some interesting facts on fireworks in Maine. In 1821, a fireworks bill was passed in Maine to give control over fireworks to the cities and towns. After many injuries and fires, in the 1840s a bill was put in to curb fireworks to what they are today. Rep. Lajoie said that he and others are getting numerous e-mails from Maine citizens about fireworks injuries. Does everyone remember the fire in Portland on July 4, 2010? Sometimes even the professionals make mistakes. Why would we want to pass a bill to put fireworks in the hands of our children?

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In the next few weeks there will be a lot to speak up about. Please take the time to write a letter to the editor, call your friends and family, have a house party, etc. You may think that it does not make a difference and that no one will listen, but many people are paying attention right now, and it will make a difference.

It certainly has been busy on the political landscape over the last couple of weeks! There seem to be no boundaries as to what is right and what is wrong. Rules are being broken. Committees are meeting behind closed doors without public input. It is just plain shameful!

Are We Broke?

As you know, there has been a lot of talk from the Republican party, our Governor, and our new State Treasurer about how broke the State of Maine is. It is important to remember that the State of Maine has a Constitutional requirement to balance the budget every year. I would also like to note that the Republican two-year budget being proposed is $6.2 billion. The last two-year budget under Democratic majority was $5.8 billion. (Democrats were able to balance the budget and protect the people of Maine–and they worked across the aisle to do it.) Where is the extra $4 billion going? Perhaps to tax cuts for the wealthy? Republican’s are using fear and rhetoric to blame state workers, teachers, and people on welfare for our deficit. Please look beyond what is being said and pay attention to the truth. Information from the majority party and the Governor will probably get even more fear based and rhetorical as Lepage is creating the “Governor’s Office of Communications.” I wonder who he will hire for this new position?

Health Care Bill

To begin, let’s start with what happened last week with LD 1333 the health care reform bill. Watch the below video. Republicans supported the bill and didn’t even know what was in it. This bill as currently written will hurt people in Northern Maine and the elderly. (Crafts-Lisbon, Espling-New Gloucester, Knight-Livermore Falls, Timberlake-Turner, Wood-Sabattus all voted for this bill. See the roll call here.) The word is that Tarren Bragden helped write the bill. Click here to check out this picture of him heading behind closed doors to caucus with Republicans on the bill. Now how’s that for transparency?

Click here to watch videos from Dirigo Blue which tell more about what happened with LD 1333 in committee and on the House floor.

Conflict of Interest

The Androscoggin County Democratic Committee held listening sessions in Turner and Leeds this past week. These sessions were well attended. Rep. Peggy Rotundo attended the Turner session and Rep. Mike Carey attended the Leeds session. At the Leeds session, we discussed the stepping down of Darryl Brown from the DEP. It is interesting that after Brown stepped down the Republican’s complained about how the laws on conflict of interest need to be changed. Our new Governor proclaimed that since Brown had a conflict of interest so did members of the DEP Board. He sent letters to every member of this Board. You can view the letter here. How is this helping to create jobs in Maine?

Lack of Transparency

I have been up in Augusta a couple of times in the past week. I was very disappointed to see the lack of transparency in the committee process. Republican committee chairs are refusing to let Democrats ask questions and bills are being rushed through committee without public input. I went to a work session on Monday. The committee came in, introduced themselves and then stated that they were going to caucus on the mornings bills. Almost two hours later the committee returned and voted on each of the bills in a very short period of time. Why aren’t committees doing their work in front of the public where it is supposed to be done?

Voter ID Bills

There are two voter bills in Augusta that are very important to pay attention to and speak out about. One bill, LD 199, requires voters to show a photo ID at the polls. This bill comes from the conspiracy theory that Maine has a lot of voter fraud. This simply is not true. (Crafts-Lisbon, Espling-New Gloucester, Knight-Livermore Falls, Timberlake-Turner, Wood-Sabattus are all co-sponsors of this bill.)

The next bill would ban voters from registering to vote on election day. This bill was voted ought not to pass in committee and then brought back as a new bill. The first bill was Gary Knight’s bill (R - Livermore). Many people including college students and new residents register to vote on election day. This is just another bill to hurt Democrats.

Women’s Rights

There is an all out assault on women’s rights in Maine. There are several anti-abortion bills that cause concern. Please take note that Garret Mason our new Republican Senator in rural Andro County is a co-sponsor of three of these bills (LD 116, LD 924, and LD 1457). I know this is a personal issue, but no matter where you stand you need to know the facts about abortion in Maine. First of all, Maine has three abortion clinics and they are only open one day a week.

LD 924 an informed consent bill requires doctors to read a biased and coercive script to a patient 24 hours before she could obtain an abortion. Women making decisions about their health have a right to non-biased information and conversation–not manipulation. Also, like I said above, abortion clinics in Maine are open only one day a week. That means women are waiting a week, maybe more, before getting an abortion. (LD 116 is similar to LD 924 as it requires a 24-wait to get an abortion except in a medical emergency.)

LD 1457 seeks to repeal Maine’s current adult consent law. Currently, when a girl 17 or younger seeks to get an abortion they need the consent of a parent, guardian, an adult family member, judge or counselor. This bill would change this law to require a notarized written consent from a parent or legal guardian before an abortion could be performed on a minor. Let me ask you a question. What if the parent or guardian is an abuser and why the young girl is pregnant? What if she is no longer living with the parent or guardian because of abuse or neglect?

I hope that everyone had a nice Easter. It certainly was a nice day!

I spent my morning in Augusta today. I went up to testify on two bills in front of the Health and Human Services Committee. The two bills were my bill ideas that were put in by another legislator for me. Today was the day for this committee to start hearing proposed welfare bills.

Two of the bills on this mornings agenda were for drug testing of MaineCare participants. I was happy to see the Maine Civil Liberties Union there testifying in opposition of these bills. If you have been following my blog, you will know that this is a subject I have done a lot of research on. You can not randomly drug test people in any government program. It is against the fourth amendment of the Constitution. Like I said before, Republican’s knew this, they campaigned on it and they lied to their own supporters. I find this very disappointing. I was also very disappointed to see that our own AG could not take the time to weigh in on this issue. Isn’t the welfare of Maine citizens important enough for him to take the time to come downstairs and weigh in? Please read this article for a recap of the welfare bills being heard in committee.

I have been busy with listening sessions, and school lately. (I am in school for paralegal studies.) Our listening sessions have been going very well. We are meeting with folks in rural Androscoggin towns to discuss what is happening in Maine government. It is so important that we all get together, express our views and advocate for our beliefs. This upcoming weekend, we will be meeting in Mechanic Falls and Turner. Please contact me if you would like dates, times and locations.

At the last Lewiston listening session people expressed concern with proposed cuts to revenue sharing, the Fund for a Healthy Maine, education, our environment, and many other crucial issues. A public works employee who attended an earlier session once again expressed his concern on LD 333 which would loosen restrictions on snow dumping. He has voiced his concerns by writing a letter to the editor and writing to every legislator. He received a negative response from Republican Senator Saviello of Franklin County stating that he should “clean up his own backyard.” Unfortunately, this attitude is quite widespread in Augusta right now. It is quite appalling.

The Governor is still warning legislators that if things do not come through the way he likes, the budget will not go through. When did Maine government become a dictatorship? I must have missed that important piece of legislation.

If you would like to know more please sign up for my e-newsletter as it is more extensive. You can sign up in the upper left hand corner of this page. If you have friends or neighbors interested in receiving this information, please forward it to them or have them sign up also.

Have a wonderful week!

P.S. Do you live in Sabattus or L/A? If so watch my new show Beyond the PInes on Tuesday nights at 7 pm. You can also watch it online at www.beyondthepines.com. Our next episode will be coming out in May!

Happy spring! I hope that everyone is well and had a good couple of weeks. Can you believe the snow we got on April Fools Day? What a surprise that was. Hopefully that is the last time we will see snow until next winter.

Politically things have been very busy lately. There has been a lot going on from the mural being taken down, LePage calling supporters of the mural idiots, the seat belt bill fight, and much more.

The bill to roll back the seat belt law in Maine has been killed. After much debate in the House and Senate it was defeated. All of the Republican’s in rural Andro County (Crafts-Lisbon, Espling-New Gloucester, Timberlake-Turner, Wood-Sabattus, Mason-Lisbon) voted to roll back the seat belt law except for Gary Knight (R - Livermore). If this bill would have passed, we would have seen our car insurance rates rise as well as costs to hospitals. This bill actually had a fiscal note for each year of more than $600,000. You can read a great article about the bill below.

Please read the Bills, Bills, and More Bills article below. I am sure you will find it very interesting.

If you have friends or neighbors interested in receiving this information, please forward it to them or have sign up.

Have a wonderful week and pray for warm weather… at least 60 degrees anyway!

P.S. I am now the host of a new Great Falls TV show. It is called Beyond The Pines. Visit our website here for more information.

Listen or read this weeks Democratic message from Senator Justin Alfond.

Bills, Bills, and More Bills

Bruce Bickford (R - Rep. Auburn) is the co-sponsor, along with Eleanor Espling (R - Rep. New Gloucester) and Garret Mason (R - Sen. Androscoggin County), of one of the child labor laws that is getting so much buzz–LD 1346 An Act to Enhance Access to the Workplace for Minors. This bill would allow kids under 18 to work more hours per week while trying to juggle schoolwork and have them work at a “training wage” of 5.25/hour for the first 180 days or 6 months. This bill was very well thought out and it is deceiving. Just think about it. Our summer tourist season is 3-4 months. Our winter tourist season is 4-5 months. This bill would encourage businesses to get rid of adults making minimum wage or above in favor or hiring high school kids at the training wage. Businesses would save a bundle and many adults would lose their summer or winter employment. How’s that for a Republican jobs bill?

Steve Wood (R - Rep. Sabattus) who is a Maine Guide is at it again. Two of the bills he has in this session are self serving bills — An Act To Auction Off Moose Permits to Maine Guides, and An Act To Amend the Laws Governing Bear Hunting. I keep wondering how these self serving bills are helping the people of Sabattus and Greene?

Wood also had a bill in to stop TANF recipients from getting cash from their Pinetree cards. Other benefits like child support if collected by the state are put on the PineTree card. It is wrong to say people can’t get this money off from their cards. This bill was ruled unconstitutional by Maine’s Attorney General. If you pay attention you will see that is is just one of many welfare bills put in this session that will be ruled unconstitutional. “They knew and they lied,” would be a good slogan for the welfare bills the Republicans put in this session. Misinformation was put out by the Republican party and the Maine Heritage Policy Center to enrage people…. like I have said before, it’s all smoke and mirrors.

Jeff Timberlake (R - Rep. Turner) has multiple self serving bills in. Timberlake, a farmer, wants to exempt family farms from Maine’s estate tax, wants to be able to burn agricultural products in an outdoor boiler (not good for our environment!), wants to revise pesticide notifications to only 100 feet (people want to know who is spraying and where), wants to exempt farm and homemade products from licensing, and on and on and on. Many of his bills are concerning. On exempting farm and homemade products though it sounds like a good idea, how do we as consumers know that the product is safe?

Dale Crafts (R - Rep. Lisbon) has many firearms bills in. One that really concerns me is An Act To Allow Concealed Weapons in the State House. (Timberlake of Turner is a co-sponsor of this bill.) This bill has been referred to committee. The public hearing is April 11th in the Criminal Justice committee room. If this bill concerns you as much as it concerns me, please consider writing testimony against it or writing a letter to the editor. I can’t even imagine why Crafts would want this? Emotions often get heated at the state house and disagreements often occur. This bill is not a good idea! (I bet the Maine TEA Party loves this bill!)

Lois Snowe-Mello (R - Sen. Poland) sponsored a bill that exempts shellfish processing facilities from testing and reporting requirements and discharge limits concerning arsenic. She seems to be the mother or anti-environmental bills this session. Her thing used to be being mean to puppies, now it seems to be destroying Maine’s environment. Shame on her.

Snowe-Mello has 4 bills listed on Conservation Law Foundation’s list of the 50 bills that could weaken or undermine Maine’s environment. LD 281 An Act To Create a 5-year Statute of Limitations for Environmental Violations Weakens environmental enforcement potentially allowing violators to escape accountability and transfers costs to taxpayers; LD 219 An Act To Amend the Laws Governing Shoreland Zoning drastically weakens Maine’s shoreland zoning increasing pollution to lakes, rivers, coastal waters and damaging habitat; LR 1960 An Act To Clarify Maine’s Phaseout of the “Deca” Mixture of Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers appears that it intends to create a loophole in the law phasing out the toxic chemical deca; LR 671 An Act To Eliminate Most Rule-making Authority of State Agencies could cripple implementation of environmental (and other) laws in Maine.

Margaret Craven (D - Sen. Lewiston) passed a resolve to require dementia care training in long-term care facilities, adult day care programs, certain residential care facilities and supported living arrangements. I think this is a good idea. Having a family member with dementia myself, I know how difficult it can be to communicate with someone who has it. This bill requires that all administrators and direct care staff complete 8 hours of dementia care training in order to work in those long-term care facilities, adult day care programs, residential care facilities and supported living arrangements and to require that documentation of satisfaction of the training requirement is a condition of their licensure or certification.

Peggy Rotundo (D - Rep. Lewiston) has a bill in to provide veterans of the United States Armed Forces who served in Iraq or Afghanistan subsequent to September 11, 2001 a bonus of $1,000 for the veteran’s first deployment and $500 for every subsequent deployment and to a veteran of the United States Armed Forces who served at least 6 months’ active duty subsequent to September 11, 2001 but did not serve in Iraq or Afghanistan a bonus of $500. I like this bill. I think that we all should support our veterans.

Jon Hinck (D - Rep. Portland) has in 3 bills that I intended to submit had I been re-elected. Jon has worked hard to formulate the bills and I thank him very much for his hard work. First, is a resolve, To Improve Health Outcomes for MaineCare Members in Managed Care. What this resolve does is direct the Department of Health and Human Services to provide financial incentives to managed care organizations and persons who contract to deliver managed care to MaineCare members for reducing avoidable use of hospital emergency department services.

The next bill Rep. Hinck has in for me is to provide expanded dental benefits for adults in the MaineCare program and also directs the Department of Health and Human Services, Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention to convene a working group to review the feasibility of implementing provisions of the Governor’s Task Force on Expanding Access to Oral Health Care for Maine People. My logic with this bill is that if we want people on TANF to become productive working citizens, we need to provide them with good dental care. If someone has no teeth or bad teeth, how often do you think they are going to get passed over for a job opportunity? I can bet that it is more often than not.

The final bill Rep. Hinck put in for me is very close to my heart. Last March my niece was murdered by her new husband. This bill has to do with domestic violence. This bill does 3 things. It creates domestic violence hearsay exceptions in court cases, it allows the offering into evidence at a hearing for a protection from abuse order the defendant’s prior convictions for domestic violence assault, and it requires the Board of Trustees of the Maine Criminal Justice Academy to adopt a model policy for the serving of protection from abuse orders.

If you have any questions about any of the above bills or want to know more about the bills or how you can write testimony or a letter to the editor, please contact me. I am here to help.

16-Plus Questions About Watering Down Maine’s Seat Belt Law

By Dr. Erik Steele
Posted March 21, 2011, at 9:35 p.m.

Like many of you, I hope this is the last seat belt column I ever write. Sometime in the next few days, the Maine Legislature will decide whether to water down Maine’s seat belt law. Here are 16 questions to ask Maine legislators who might vote to do that:

1. In the last two years, when a Maine Medicaid patient has been injured in a car crash and admitted to Eastern Maine Medical Center, how much more were the average hospital bills for unbelted patients than seat-belted patients? Answer: about $33,000 more per unbelted patient.

2. How much did the hospital bills for those 44 unbelted Maine Medicaid patients total in two years? Answer: over 2.2 million bucks.

3. How much did Maine taxpayers pay of those bills? Answer: just about every darn cent, through their taxes, health insurance premiums and higher medical bills.

4. When Maine Medicaid is already hundreds of millions of dollars over budget, does it make sense to pass a law that will ultimately add even more costs to its already busted budget? Answer: … Do I really need to answer that?

5 and 6. When a state legislator votes to allow more people to go unbelted because the seat-belt law gets turned into an unenforceable joke, more people get injured as a result, and then I have to help pay for those higher costs through my taxes, isn’t that legislator effectively voting to raise my taxes? And isn’t this the Republican-controlled Legislature that got elected in part because it was supposed to protect me from tax increases? Answers: Ayuh, and I thought so, but …?

7. When the state’s budget already has to be cut by about $800 million over the next two years, and a legislator votes to do something we all know will just add to the state’s budget deficit, isn’t that legislator perhaps ducking responsibility to do everything possible to hold state budget costs under control? Answer: If it looks like ducking, sounds like ducking, probably is ducking.

8 and 9. Why should it be OK for someone to break the law, which watering down Maine’s current seat belt law basically would allow by making it essentially unenforceable? If we have a law on the books, shouldn’t it be enforceable by police officers? Answers: It shouldn’t be OK, and abso-darn-lutely.

10 and 11. Why should someone’s freedom to go unbelted and suffer more costly injuries at my financial expense trump my freedom to keep more of my money in my pocket instead of having it wasted for taxes and health insurance premiums for preventable injuries? Answer: It should not, and yet it almost always does trump it for those voting to overturn seat belt laws and their enforcement. Why is that?

12 and 13. What else will be cut from the state budget to make up for the added costs and lost revenue that result from watering down the seat belt law? Shouldn’t anyone voting to do that have to put up a list of what they will cut in order to afford this freedom? Answers: yes, and you betcha.

14. When just about everyone who wants the right to go unbelted would give that right back in the split second before they or a loved one gets hurled through a windshield at 50 mph, is it really a right worth defending? Answer: No, and that’s the split second legislators should be thinking about when they vote this week.

15-plus. I know blood must occasionally be spilled in the name of freedom, but that of our teenagers and young adults, who are most likely to go unbelted? To “protect” us from police enforcing a simple seat belt law in our cars (an already regulated place) on the public roads (an already regulated space), while driving (a privilege and not a right)? Our blood, for that freedom? Really? Answer: You tell their families it was all in “freedom’s cause.”

16. What should you tell your legislator about a seat belt law change that will add to our taxes and health care bills, add to an $800 million state budget deficit, allow people to scoff at the remaining seat belt law with impunity, and result in the maiming and deaths of more Mainers? Answer: Vote No on LD 64.

Erik Steele, D.O., a physician in Bangor, is chief medical officer of Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems.

I hope that everyone is well. Last weekend I attended the Lewiston delegation’s monthly listening session held at the Lewiston Library. The session was very well attended. The room was packed. Senator Margarent Craven, Rep. Peggy Rotundo, Rep. Mike Lajoie, and Rep. Dick Wagner were there.

Many concerned teachers were in attendance. They all spoke of broken promises. Many are near retirement age and they spoke about how they didn’t feel they had a choice of whether to retire or not. They just don’t feel that they can take any more financial increases, stress, and they are concerned about their health insurance. One teacher stated, “This is my Social Security and I am being asked to pay more and others aren’t.” (Remember, teachers don’t get SS when they retire. Their pension is their retirement.)

A lady from Lewiston stated that this was the mother of all cost shifting schemes and that they (LePage and others) want state workers to foot the bill for 1.3 million Mainer’s. She also stated, “The middle class was taking the lumps right down the line. The wealthy are getting a good deal. They are picking the pocket of the middle class.” Another teacher stated, that the new administration is working hard to vilify teachers.

Many in the room were concerned about what Gov. LePage said on WSCH’s 207 program. On the program, LePage gave incorrect information to Maine people. He stated that state workers are forced to join unions. Union workers are not forced to join unions. They have a choice. You can read the statute on joining or not joining a state union here.

Rep. Peggy Rotundo is on the Appropriations Committee. She said that the committee has been working hard on the issues. She, like many others, is very concerned about many things in the budget.

Here is how some of the cuts in the budget will affect us. The drug program for the elderly which comes from the Fund for a Healthy Maine and racino monies (none of the money in this fund comes from the General Fund) helps low income Mainer’s who are on Medicare and eligible for MaineCare. You or someone you know may participate in this program. The money in this fund has been taken out to cover MaineCare benefits. It is said that $18 million will be taken out of MaineCare. This will hurt daycare programs, drug programs, etc. Did you hear yet that the budget proposes closing 10 of Maine’s 13 mental health/substance abuse facilities? A friend said to me the other day that she remembers that when she was young every town had a hobo or someone who suffered from addiction and lived on the streets. With the closing of so many facilities what will happen to the mentally ill and substance abusers who are receiving treatment? Will they just be left on the street? Many will probably end up in another system which costs much more than the treatment they currently receive–jail or prison.

All of the cuts in the budget will mean that local towns will have to pick up the pieces–yes, I am talking about property taxes. You can bet that property taxes will go up. All while the middle class and low income Mainer’s hurt more and the wealthy of Maine enjoy their tax cuts. Now is not the time to extend the estate tax to $2 million and give a tax cut to Mainer’s who make over $350,000. Tax cuts like this should be reserved for good times.

One man stated that he was concerned about how one political party seems to be working hard to split the middle class and get them to fight amongst themselves. I have to agree with that statement. I think we can all see this when we talk to our friends and neighbors.

To make progress happen, we all have to start to work together and find a middle ground. We cannot let them turn their backs on our most vulnerable citizens like the elderly, the mentally ill, and low- and middle- income Mainer’s.

If you are ready to make your voice heard, there are things you can do. You can write a letter to the editor to your local paper or weekly. You can write or call your local Rep. or Senator, and you can write or call the Governor. If interested in a particular bill, you can write and submit testimony. If you need help with any of these things or you are ready to get involved locally, please feel free to contact me and I will see what I can do to help.

If you have friends or neighbors interested in receiving this information, please forward it to them or have sign up in the upper left hand corner of this blog page. Next time, I will have more information on bills. It will be interesting. Stay tuned!

The impact of Reductions on Maine Citizens needing Substance Abuse Services

By Joan Churchill, M.S., CADC

The Governor’s budget proposes eliminating $4.4 million from OSA’s FHM budget, reducing:
· Treatment dollars by $3,961,520, representing almost 31% loss of OSA treatment budget
· Prevention dollars by $388,424, representing 27% loss of prevention budget compounding the effects of the reduction in FHM funds for Maine OSA, the federal SAMHSA Substance Abuse Prevention Treatment Block Grant Maintenance of Effort will be compromised and Maine will lose $1.4 million in federal funds through federal Block Grant reductions. The total loss to OSA is then $6 million dollars.

The impact of the loss of FHM funds as well as the Block Grant fund reduction will most likely impact Maine’s Substance Abuse Treatment safety net by:
· Reducing residential treatment programs from 13 to 3, (only emergency shelter detox);
· Transitioning treatment to the lowest level of care in limited settings, reducing the number of treatment agencies and thus causing decreased client access;
· Eliminating substance abuse treatment with HIV populations and an ACT program.
· Greatly reducing funding for and the numbers of prevention services and programs for children, teens, college students and parents. Healthy Maine Partnership will be funded at 64%; Programs will be reduced from 13 providers to 4; State wide media and prevention campaigns will be decreased; Underage drinking prevention programs will be severely curtailed.

Cost offset of Treatment Services - The benefits of treatment far outweigh the costs:
· Treatment has been shown to have a benefit cost ration of 7:1. According to NIDA, however, the return on investing in treatment alone may exceed 12:1 that is every dollar spent on treatment can reduce future burden costs by $12 or more in reduced drug related crime, criminal justice and health care costs.
· Treatment leads to health and public safety cost reductions, health care utilization savings, improved workplace development/jobs retention, Medicaid savings.
· The total economic cost of alcohol and drug abuse in Maine in 2010 is estimated at $1,180 million or $ 907 for every resident in Maine.
· Maine fund for prevention and treatment is 0.2% of total cost of Maine’s budget spent on substance abuse and addiction (CASA 2005).
· For every $100 Maine spends on Substance Abuse and Addiction, $0.71 is spent on prevention and treatment, $98.75 is spent on the burden to public programs, and $0.54 is spent on public compliance.

Maine’s current statistics:
· Maine ranks #1 in treatment for opiate addiction, 8 times the national average.
· Maine is among those states in the nation with the highest rates for people needing but not receiving treatment for drug addiction.
· There are waiting lists for people wanting treatment for addiction.

In Maine, outcome data shows that, with treatment, there is a/an:
· 13% increase in employment
· 80% reduction in arrests
· 95% reduction in illicit substance use
· 64% decrease in homelessness
· 29% increase in family reunification
· 3% increase in independent living
· 40-60% overall drug use reduction
· 40-60% crime rate reduction
· 40% employment prospect increase.

Provided by:
Joan Churchill, M.S., CADC, Director of Family Services
Community Concepts, Inc.www.community-concepts.org