Don’t repeal Obamacare
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, 24 million more people will be uninsured by 2026 if the Republican plan to replace the Affordable Care Act becomes law, leaving 52 million people without insurance by that date.
How many millions of these people will have to die unnecessarily because of the lack of health insurance? We have a plan that is working — the Affordable Care Act. While this plan is not perfect, it could have been much better if Republicans in Congress had worked with the Democrats instead of opposing everything President Barack Obama proposed.
All Republicans have done since then is repeatedly vote to repeal this legislation. It is tragic but understandable when self-serving politicians act this way. It is unfathomable when professing Christians vote for and condone such evil behavior. When will we as a nation wake up and start showing compassion for all our fellow Americans? God help us all.
Stephen Wiggin
Jonesport
Support North Woods monument
The Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument is stimulating economic growth in a region that needs it, protecting wildlife habitat and recreation and putting rural, northern Maine on the world’s radar. Our congressional representatives should fully support it.
I’m deeply troubled to think the president may be considering pulling the rug out from under rural Maine. But what troubles me more is the idea that my elected representative, Bruce Poliquin, is not going to bat for this huge boon to the Katahdin region and rural Maine.
Poliquin has long known Mainers from every region of the state support the monument, specifically in the 2nd Congressional District. More than 1,200 of us turned out to voice our support to Sen. Angus King at a forum at the Collins Center for the Arts in Orono last May. Poliquin held a field hearing in East Millinocket, where he invited out-of-state congressmen and a couple of lobbyists up to northern Maine to tell us all how bad it would be. After the politicians and lobbyists made their speeches and left, 48 people who actually live in the Katahdin region stood up and told Poliquin they supported the monument. Only 12 spoke against it, one of them a lobbyist from Augusta.
Poliquin needs to support the will and best interest of Maine people. He should tell the president to leave our monument alone. Anything less is hurting rural Maine and our small businesses, from snowmobile rentals to sporting goods stores and hunting lodges.
Debbie Gilmer
Orono
Oakhurst comma dispute
The BDN reported on March 19 that a labor dispute between Oakhurst Dairy and truck drivers who have sued for unpaid overtime has been kept alive by a missing comma in a state statute.
A reading of the statute leaves no doubt in my mind that an injustice has been done based on quibbling.
The original had a clear meaning despite its lack of the serial comma. I’m not anti-trucker, but this seems to me a clear case of lawyers creating confusion where none really existed to begin with. The intent and sense of the language was clearly to exclude overtime for distribution, even though this may seem unfair to many.
Gene Clifford
Mount Desert
Implement ranked-choice voting
Last November, the people of Maine approved Question 5 to adopt ranked-choice voting. Republicans, Democrats, independents, Greens and Libertarians from every county offered their support. Mainers chose a system that could give qualified candidates a fighting chance, keep candidates who are opposed by a majority from being elected and encourage candidates to focus on issues, not partisan bickering.
On Jan. 7, ranked-choice voting became law but still requires implementation. The ballot design must be updated, counting procedures must be arranged and local officials must be trained. The whole process must be completed efficiently, securely and transparently. Although they lost at the ballot box, opponents of ranked-choice voting are attempting to disregard the will of the people and block the law’s implementation. In doing so, they are undermining our right to direct democracy through the citizen initiative process.
The residents of Maine have long placed our own bills on the ballot, the right to which only 26 other states enjoy. Over the past three years, thousands of Mainers pitched in to put ranked-choice voting on the ballot and spread the word to their neighbors. The people have done their part. The Legislature and Maine secretary of state need to act with integrity and uphold their constitutional duty. Implementation must happen now so that ranked-choice voting is in place by the 2018 election.
Maggie Clark
Montville
GOP bill guts health care
The proposed replacement for the Affordable Care Act would be detrimental to many people in Maine. The recent Congressional Budget Office analysis of it indicates that millions of people will become uninsured.
The replacement does nothing to reduce the cost of prescriptions and would increase premiums for older Americans. The impact on Medicaid would jeopardize essential care for 17 million seniors and people with disabilities. Maine cannot assume this cost.
Where is the care in the health care legislation?
I urge everyone to contact Rep. Bruce Poliquin to ask him to reconsider his support of the Republican proposal.
Rosalyn Fisher
Bangor
Executive order questions
On June 20, 2016, Gov. Paul LePage issued an executive order that directed the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention and Maine Department of Environment Protection “to undertake a review of scientific literature regarding the human health effects of emissions produced by the combustion of ethanol containing gasoline and the effect of increasing ethanol blends on emissions.”
A report of these findings was to be provided to the governor by Jan. 1. The due date is long gone and still no report. The taxpayers, whose hard-earned tax dollars paid for this report, need to have some questions answered.
Is there a written report? If not, why not? Was taxpayer money wasted? Were the Center for Disease Control and Department of Environment Protection competent enough to accomplish the executive order’s goals?
If they were competent enough, what were their findings or is something being hidden from the people?
I believe the taxpayers deserve to know the findings, or did the governor waste taxpayer dollars?
Ralph Stevens
South Berwick