Politics
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Democrats who control the Legislature will move ahead with a “continuing services” budget to fill a $118 million MaineCare deficit and help health care providers after Senate Republicans refused Thursday to back a short-term spending plan, leaders announced Friday.
Republicans responded Friday by saying they will oppose the plan that includes the funding for the state’s Medicaid program that serves more than 400,000 Mainers and is designed to “keep the lights on” while avoiding a state government shutdown, Senate President Mattie Daughtry, D-Brunswick, and House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, D-Biddeford, said in a Friday statement.
It sets up another process in which Democrats could use their majorities to pass a budget without GOP support. The top Democrats said the continuing services budget has no new initiatives and that lawmakers will vote on it in “the coming weeks” after the budget committee first took it up Friday during an acrimonious meeting.
Daughtry and Fecteau shared the plan after the supplemental budget including the MaineCare money and $2 million to fight spruce budworm infestations effectively died Thursday when all but two Senate Republicans continued to withhold the votes needed to give it a two-thirds majority for it to take effect immediately. Daughtry said she did not want to pass the plan by only a simple majority, because it would take 90 days for the money to reach health providers.
The continuing services budget also includes the spruce budworm infestation money, a Fecteau spokesperson said, but Senate Republicans disputed that while complaining it removes General Assistance limits and direct care worker cost-of-living increases that the House OK’d Tuesday.
Democrats and House Republicans had agreed earlier in the week to back an amended short-term budget that included General Assistance limits and a third-party review of any MaineCare “waste, fraud and abuse,” but all Republican senators except Rick Bennett of Oxford and Marianne Moore of Calais said they wanted more provisions to cap costs, such as MaineCare work requirements.
“The fiscal uncertainty we are seeing in Washington can be avoided here in Maine,” Daughtry said Friday, while Fecteau said Democrats “are not willing to risk a government shutdown or neglect our state’s health and well-being.”
Stewart said in a Friday statement that Democrats “were secretly crafting their own budget” amid the supplemental stalemate, while Sen. Sue Bernard, R-Caribou, the ranking GOP appropriator, said she skipped Friday’s budget panel meeting because she did not have enough time to review the new plan. But Democratic appropriators, such as Rep. Kristen Cloutier of Lewiston, pointed out GOP appropriators initially backed the short-term budget in February before Rep. Ken Fredette, R-Newport, helped turn the caucus against it.
Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, criticized Senate Republicans on Thursday and said their refusal to back the supplemental deal “is harmful for Maine health care providers and their patients.” The Legislature has also been moving ahead with hearings and votes on the governor’s two-year, $11.6 billion budget that mixes tax hikes with health cuts to fill a $450 million shortfall.
Hospitals and health care providers around Maine have warned they may need to cut services amid the state starting this week to cap and withhold certain payments to account for the continuing MaineCare funding gap. Maine Oral Health Centers Alliance President Dr. Kailee Jorgenson said dental providers will face payment delays starting March 22 and that they will will “face significant financial strain, threatening the continuity of essential services.”
“We’re frustrated,” Maine Hospital Association lobbyist Jeff Austin said after the Senate failed to pass the supplemental budget Thursday. “[We] have a few members that are in no shape to deal with this. We will seek other options.”