A coalition supporting a Medicaid expansion ballot initiative in Maine launched its campaign this week with events in Bangor and Lewiston.
Mainers for Health Care said in a news release the November ballot initiative would expand healthcare to 70,000 state residents if passed.
"It will [also] help our hospitals, particularly in rural areas, and it will make our state's economy stronger by creating more than 3,000 jobs," added Robyn Merrill, the co-chair of Mainers for Health Care.
But political action committee Welfare to Work, which opposes the ballot initiative, countered in a statement by describing Medicaid as "medical welfare," reports The Portland Press Herald.
"The Medicaid welfare expansion on this November's ballot is about giving welfare to working age adults who are not disabled while saddling Maine taxpayers with massive additional costs," state Rep. Heather Sirocki, R-Scarborough, an opposition spokesperson, said, according to the report. "This makes it even more difficult for the state to take care of the hundreds of cognitively and physically disabled Mainers who have been languishing on waitlists."
Cost has also been a key sticking point with both sides. Some lawmakers contend Medicaid expansion would cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars over the next decade, while parties in favor of expansion argue federal funding for Medicaid expansion would offset the costs, according to the report.
This is not the first Medicaid expansion effort in Maine. Republican Gov. Paul LePage has vetoed multiple Medicaid expansion bills since taking office in 2011, reports The Portland Press Herald.
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