Litter a problem for everyone
The Legislature voted to override Gov. LePage’s veto of a litter cleanup day bill, LD 432.
The governor wrote that the bill wasn’t practical nor necessary and that litter “is known to be washed away” with the spring thaw.
Our Pemaquid Peninsula group has conducted litter surveys each spring for the past four years. We directly count thousands of individual pieces of litter along roadsides and note that most litter does not wash away in the spring. With snowmelt and spring rains, small bits like cigarette butts, paper and plastic are carried to larger water bodies and storm drains, where they are deposited somewhere else — likely a river, pond, lake, bay or the ocean.
Litter ends up somewhere and causes problems for someone — highway departments, public works employees, fish and wildlife. Larger pieces like cans, bottles, papers, cups and bags are picked up by state and local road crews and by helpful, hard-working residents and taken to a transfer station.
Regarding the governor’s opinion that a litter day is not practical, perhaps he doesn’t realize that communities throughout Maine have held successful litter cleanup days for many years. As for not being necessary, our annual survey shows that the amount of litter on the Pemaquid Peninsula has not gone down appreciably over the past four years.
Linda Shaffer
Bristol
Don’t sacrifice public health nurses
I spent several years as a public health nurse, helping people with newly diagnosed diabetes learn to administer insulin, visiting mothers and newborns, running immunization campaigns, investigating disease outbreaks and advising communities about rabies control.
Public health nursing and home health care visiting reduces the use of the emergency room and other expensive health services. If we want to be smart with our state budget, we will support LD 1108 and fund public health nurses. The Health and Human Services Committee voted the bill ought to pass, and it now goes to the full House and Senate.
Two strategies have been suggested as alternatives to our public health nursing program. One would utilize volunteers with no medical training or community health workers trained for limited tasks. The second would outsource public health nursing to the private sector. Neither approach would provide the level of care or flexibility to meet new problems that an adequately staffed public health nursing program can provide. There is a wealth of experience with these strategies in international settings, and they never live up to their hopes and ultimately increase costs.
I am now a physician, and I spend time in countries around the world with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization. During disasters and outbreaks, I have worked alongside smart and adaptive public health nurses, who are the envy of any health system. Please do not sacrifice nurses to partisan fighting. I urge legislators to vote yes on LD 1108.
Sharon McDonnell
Associate professor
Geisel Medical School
Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice
Yarmouth
MaineCare changes harm the poor
The Maine Department of Human Services is proposing changes to MaineCare, the state’s Medicaid program, that will have a negative effect on the lives of low income Mainers. These new proposals will make it harder for those on MaineCare to access health insurance.
I am a retired public school teacher. Presently, I am a volunteer with Literacy Volunteers of Waldo County. Having taught and worked with students and families in Waldo County for many years, I am acutely aware of the many difficulties low-income people face.
The Department of Human Services is proposing that MaineCare recipients pay monthly premiums, meet work requirements, pay $20 for nonemergency use of hospital emergency rooms, be charged for missed appointments and be penalized for modest savings. These proposals will only make it harder for people to manage financially.
The Department of Human Services believes the new rules will “promote financial independence” and “encourage individual responsibility for one’s health and healthcare costs.” Adding health care costs to MaineCare recipients will do none of this. These new proposals will only make it harder for people to manage already financially stressed lives.
I find it extremely frustrating that the Department of Human Services can make these rules with no required input from our elected officials. On May 18, I testified against these proposals (called a 1115 Waiver) at a hearing in Augusta. I am encouraging people to contact their representative and senator and ask them to do all they can to stop these proposed changes.
David Smith
Belfast
Wage crisis in mental health system
I am writing in support of the May 19 BDN editorial titled, “Maine GOP can’t keep ignoring the wage crisis among workers caring for the sick, dying.”
The Behavioral Health Community Collaborative, which includes KidsPeace, Opportunity Alliance, Oxford Mental Health, Shalom House, Spurwink and Sweetser, would like to add that this wage crisis also applies to the community mental health system.
Each year thousands of Maine children and adults go unserved because of rates for mental health and substance use services that have stayed around the same for 10 years — even when consumer price and inflation indices have increased by 20 percent.
The situation has created a behavioral health workforce crisis in the community mental health system. Meanwhile, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services has proposed rate cuts during the current legislative session for the same workers who provide these critical services.
Trained professionals are needed to fill positions — psychiatrists, nurse practitioners, Suboxone prescribers, licensed clinical social workers, licensed clinical professional counselors, case managers, licensed alcohol and drug counselors — in community-based and residential treatment programs.
When services are not adequately funded, people seek services in hospital emergency departments, where the care is more expensive. A lack of services in-state sometimes leads to treatment out-of-state, away from families and other community support systems.
Please urge the Legislature to address these critical workforce issues by raising the salaries we can offer by addressing rates across the board.
Ken Olson
Executive director
KidsPeace
Wells