Yes on Question 2
As a CEO of a community health center, I’ve seen firsthand what it’s like when people go without health coverage. No one should be forced to decide whether or not they can afford life-saving health care. This November we can change that.
On Nov. 7, Mainers will have a chance to vote to expand access to MaineCare for Mainers who make less than 138 percent of the federal poverty level — less than $16,000 a year for an individual. This will help more than 70,000 Mainers afford critical health care needs like preventive cancer screenings and medication for chronic diseases like diabetes.
These are people like you or me who go to work each day and contribute to Maine’s economy. They often work more than one job to make ends meet, but do not work enough at one job to be eligible for insurance coverage and they are not covered under the Affordable Care Act.
We all pay, in higher insurance premiums, when uninsured folks access care at our local emergency rooms or outpatient clinics. Voting Yes on Question 2 will provide Maine with federal funds that will cover 90 percent of the health care costs from expansion; $525 million in federal health care funds will come to Maine each year, which will cover the 70,000 Mainers that live day to day without coverage.
Expanding Medicaid will also create thousands of new jobs and will help support Maine’s rural hospitals and community clinics.
I hope you will join me in voting Yes on Question 2 on Nov. 7.
Carol Carew
CEO
Bucksport Regional Health Center
Orrington
Casino vote a bad deal
Question 1 is not really about a casino in York County. In our opinion it really is about whether or not the voters will allow “a certain (out of state) company” a gambling license worth over $100 million.
Why should this money go to this out-of-state company instead staying in Maine? The taxpayers of Massachusetts got $170 million for two casino licenses where they had competitive bidding. Why can’t we?
This question is a bad deal for us. Please join us in voting no on Question 1 on Nov. 7.
Cindi and Lionel Menard
Kennebunk
Poliquin fails tax test
On Thursday, Bruce Poliquin had a chance to redeem himself when he voted to support the House budget resolution, the same one the Senate passed the previous week, with the support of Susan Collins.
Poliquin supports balancing the budget, but the resolution would add $1.5 trillion to the federal deficit over the next 10 years.
He already voted for an Affordable Care Act “repeal and replace” health bill that would have thrown Mainers off the Medicaid rolls and closed rural hospitals. True to form, he has now voted for a resolution that would cut Medicaid and threaten funding for Medicare and Social Security, all critical to the 2nd District. The resolution leads directly to a tax cut bill that, according to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center, would lower tax rates for the rich, allow them to call themselves a “business” to get an even lower tax rate, and eliminate the estate tax (a huge gift to the rich).
Poliquin will tell us that this bill will help working families by doubling the standard deduction. But it may take this “help” away by reducing the amount working families can set aside for retirement in their 401(k)s, eliminating the personal tax exemptions, and raising the lowest tax bracket from 10 percent to 12 percent.
The budget resolution tested Poliquin’s commitment to support the 2nd District’s working and low-income families. He failed the test.
Gordon Adams
Brunswick
No on Question 1
We live in a world of lies these days, and the proposed southern Maine casino, Question 1 on the Nov. 7 ballot, is no exception. Make no mistake, this referendum if approved, would enrich gambling tycoon Shawn Scott, who is already a multi-millionaire.
The “vote yes” signs planted along our roads don’t even mention what Question 1 is actually about. Scott is the only one who can build a gambling house under the question’s language, and as the old saying goes, “the house always wins.” Scott isn’t doing this for jobs, for education or any other good cause. It’s greed and the whole deal smacks of corruption. Scott has been linked to numerous lawsuits, according to news reports.
In the past, Maine has denied a casino to the Passamaquoddy Tribe, certainly more worthy than Scott. Then Maine allowed slot machines in Bangor, a former Scott operation that is a depressing reminder of our duplicity in dealing with Native Americans.
Maine is not about bilking poor people out of their hard-earned money. Maine is not about allowing a rich developer drag us into the gutter of gambling. There are just two words to remember: Vote No.
Steve Cartwright
Tenants Harbor
Trump, life president
President Donald Trump has accomplished more for the culture of life than any other president already. When first elected, he reinstated the Mexico City Policy that President Ronald Reagan first installed but was removed by Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both, pro-choice Democrats. The policy prohibits U.S. funding of abortions overseas. It also bars programs of forced abortions and sterilizations. This one action saved the U.S. $8 billion and untold thousands of babies’ lives.
It was great that Vice President Mike Pence made a good speech at the March for Life in Washington, D.C., with Trump’s support.
Next, Trump is working to make the Hyde Amendment permanent so it doesn’t have to be voted on by Congress every year and wants it extended it to all federal spending, not just Health and Human Services authorization. The amendment bars federal money being spent on abortion.
Joint resolution 43, signed by Trump stops Title X family planning funds to groups that fund abortion, like Planned Parenthood. This regulation was put in place by Obama.
Trump also gave us a good Supreme Court Justice, Neil Gorsuch, who has ruled against the Obama administration’s HHS mandate on the circuit court.
On Oct. 6, Trump rolled back the Obamacare mandate that required employers and institutions, even religious ones, to provide contraceptives and abortion-inducing pills against their religious beliefs. Trump continues to do what he can to make this country great again.
Thomas Coleman Sr.
Dedham