Let’s work on LTSS
While we are happy to see strong leadership at the Department of Health and Human Services and look forward to working with Commissioner Lambrew and her team, AARP Maine is disappointed that the Bangor Daily News failed to raise the issue of long-term services and supports (LTSS) in the Feb. 15 published interview with the Commissioner.
The need to address the lack of LTSS in Maine head-on cannot be overstated. In the last eight years, we have fallen behind and missed opportunities. Existing LTSS systems are poorly coordinated and many Mainers who could be eligible are unaware of the programs or unsure of how to access them. Maine also has a dire shortage of direct care workers. In addition, there is a gap in the availability of community-based services to help older Mainers age in place.
One tool policymakers can use to assess Maine’s current long-term care system is the AARP LTSS Scorecard. The scorecard examines state performance for the delivery of LTSS, based on a uniform set of performance measures and how performance has changed over time. It includes the critical role that housing and transportation play in assisting older adults, people with physical disabilities and their family caregivers. The scorecard provides a range of tools states can use to spark new solutions and create a system in Maine that is aligned with the new realities of aging and living with disability.
Yes, DHHS has many issues to address, but this effort must include long-term care. We hope the Mills administration will soon develop a broad-based plan to initiate meaningful reforms for Maine. Our office would welcome the opportunity to engage in these efforts.
Lori Parham
AARP State Director
Portland
Don’t blame Clean Election law
Eric Brakey’s Feb. 10 assessment of Maine’s Clean Election law as not working is misleading. And his continued use of the phrase “welfare for politicians” appears designed to confuse and energize his far-right followers.
Expenditures outside of the clean election system have continued to increase because the clean election system is still voluntary. Many who run for office are still opting to run with private donations. That’s not a failure of the clean elections system.
According to the Pew Research Center, most Americans want to limit campaign spending and believe that those making large expenditures to campaigns have more influence than others.
As Lawrence Lessig, professor of law at Harvard, states, “private funding of public campaigns gives us the world we have now. We have to move from private to public.”
Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, stated in his 1907 State of the Union address that “the need for collecting large campaign funds would vanish if congress provided an appropriation for the proper and legitimate expenses of each of the great national parties.”
As for the seniors and disabled folks whose needs Brakey claims are unmet due to monies spent on clean elections, Brakey served as co-chair of the Health and Human Services Committee during a Republican administration. He had ample opportunity to advocate for those people if that truly mattered to him.
Jennifer Jones
Falmouth
What happened to Non Sequitur?
My wife and I have subscribed to the BDN for 40 years. I don’t know what started the flap over the Non Sequitur comic strip, but please bring it back! Letters indicate that it had something to do with alleged blasphemy, but I certainly missed that event. “Pearls Before Swine” regularly insults serious bicyclists and your full-page Juul ads hardly place you on a high moral pedestal. What in the world could have been so much more objectionable than these examples to cause you to decide to drop the best comic strip that you published?
David Field
Hampden