Extremist Paul LePage spent his time as Governor gutting affordable health across Maine, and he’s made it crystal clear he would do the same in Congress. Now, hardworking Mainers are calling out his disastrous agenda.
Last week, Maine patients and providers protested against LePage’s disastrous health care record: from voting against Medicaid expansion six times to supporting Republicans’ Big, Ugly Bill that ripped away health care from more than 25,000 people in ME-02.
Mainers made it crystal clear just how devastating LePage’s extreme agenda would be in Washington, with one mother of a disabled adult saying: “We may lose ground we clawed back if LePage is elected to Congress and goes to work destroying our safety net…that terrifies me,” adding that “If LePage wins, we all lose.”
DCCC Spokesperson Riya Vashi:
“Paul LePage’s reckless agenda knows no end. As Maine families grapple with the reality of reckless cuts to Medicaid, LePage couldn’t be happier to keep them coming. LePage is too extreme for Maine, and voters will soundly reject him at the ballot box in November.”
Read more:
Maine Beacon: ‘Paul LePage does not care’: Mainers call out health care cuts
- Maine patients and providers joined advocates Wednesday in Bangor to highlight former governor and Republican 2nd Congressional District candidate Paul LePage’s history on health care.
- “We’ve heard this story before, and we know how it ends,” said Ryan Tipping of the Maine Center for Economic Policy. “By the time [LePage] left office, 3,600 fewer Maine children had health insurance. Thousands of older and disabled Mainers couldn’t afford their medications.”
- As governor, LePage became famous nationally for his extreme actions on health care, including repeated refusals to expand Medicaid even after voters passed expansion at the ballot box. His administration also cut funding for family planning services; increased drug costs for older and disabled Mainers by cutting medication assistance programs; and cut MaineCare eligibility for Mainers with low income, among other actions.
- LePage has also supported large parts of the Trump Administration’s federal budget bill (HR1), the effects of which have left the state’s rural hospitals in danger, with patients traveling further and further for vital and urgent care including maternity care.
- “He loves Trump, not the constituents of Maine,” said Jesse Lambert, a nurse at Eastern Maine Medical Center. “That’s why he has already pledged to support Trump’s agenda, and he has publicly said he supports all of the HR1 cuts that will devastate rural healthcare systems like ours. What will Paul LePage say to the people of Calais, Machias, or Houlton, when these cuts threaten the very existence of their community hospitals?”
- Rev. Tammy Taylor lives in rural Hancock County, and said getting to the hospital is a major problem for the 72% of the second Congressional District’s population that lives in a rural area. “We’ve watched these hospitals close everywhere in our state, and our friends lose their MaineCare … Paul LePage does not care about those that have to travel sometimes for hours to get to a hospital.”
- LePage recently doubled down on his past refusal to expand Medicaid, in spite of the fact that expansion dramatically increases the availability of health care in the state, particularly rural areas.
- Maggie Hoffman of Hampden, whose son is profoundly disabled, shared how LePage’s cuts impacted her family.
- “Jake and thousands of other disabled Mainers and the civil administrators tending to services spent many years building back much of what we lost,” Hoffman said. “And we may lose ground we clawed back if LePage is elected to Congress and goes to work destroying our safety net.”
- “As a 70-year-old parent of a disabled adult,” she continued, “that terrifies me. Like every mom, I want to know that my child will be okay when I’m no longer here. If Le Page wins, we all lose.”
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