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Hannah Pingree is a Democratic candidate for governor and a former Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives.
The Trump Administration just failed Mainers again.
And once again, Republicans in Congress followed their lead. Weeks before key Affordable Care Act tax credits expire, they largely walked away without extending the financial support that tens of thousands of Maine families rely on to keep their health insurance within reach.
More than 50,000 Mainers depend on these subsidies to afford coverage: small business owners, self-employed workers like fishermen and farmers, part-time employees, and early retirees not yet eligible for Medicare. My own family is among them.
We just signed up for a marketplace plan and had to switch companies and choose a “bronze” plan with a high deductible to keep our local clinic and providers. Premiums jumped from about $700 a month to nearly $2,100, and the website warns that in a “good year” we might spend $25,000 on health care and in a “bad year” it could jump to more than $40,000.
In this “good” year, we learned the hard way about tick-bite blood tests and “in-network labs” versus “out-of-network” labs — almost $4,000 later, we know that the lab at Pen Bay Hospital is out of network.
Stories like mine aren’t unique. Families are facing the same impossible choices, juggling skyrocketing premiums, unpredictable out-of-pocket costs, and complex and unforgiving systems.
This isn’t just frustrating; it’s unsustainable.
We need a federal system of universal health coverage that guarantees care without overstretching family budgets. Instead, families are being forced into worse coverage with higher deductibles, or pushed to drop coverage altogether.
Mainers should not have to live with this kind of uncertainty. Paying a premium bill should not come with dread of a choice between health care, food, and rent.
That is one of the reasons I am running for governor. Maine cannot keep waiting for Washington to do what is right. When federal leadership fails, state leadership must act.
From huge Medicaid and Medicare cuts to an end to federal support for reproductive health care, federal policy choices are destabilizing the insurance marketplace, threatening rural providers, and promising to make health care access much more difficult for Americans.
While the full impact of all the cuts won’t be felt until 2027, they guarantee a worsening health care affordability crisis across the country and fewer provider options, especially in rural areas.
What makes it truly outrageous is why they were passed: to deliver massive tax cuts to the richest Americans.
Maine must protect our workers, families and seniors from the worst fallout because the truth remains: What Washington breaks, states will be left to try to repair. We don’t walk away from our neighbors in a time of crisis.
I’ve worked to build a stronger health care system for Maine. As a former chair of the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee and Speaker of the House, I fought to expand access to affordable care, protect children’s health, and lower prescription drug prices.
As director of the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future, I helped craft the Maine Jobs and Recovery Plan, providing key investments in our economy and our health care workforce at a time when our hospitals and providers were straining under intense pressure.
While we’ve made progress over the years — expanding Medicaid, training new members of urgently needed workforce, and shoring up our emergency medical providers — federal attacks are setting us back. Of the thousands of Mainers I met on the campaign trail, most bring up their complaints about health care in America and their concern it will only get worse. Our nurses, our doctors, and health care workers feel this most deeply as they are unable to provide the kind of care they feel their patients deserve.
We need radical change in this country. I am hopeful that as we stand at the edge of a national health care cliff, there will finally be consensus and support for a federal universal health care system.
But until there is action in Washington, states must act. And that is why as governor, I am committed to establishing a public health insurance option for Maine.
This public option would give Mainers a more affordable and stable option focused on the health care we need versus insurance profits. It would not replace employer coverage or private insurance. Instead, it would exist alongside them, creating a plan where the state could use its leverage to negotiate for better coverage for those left out of the current insurance market, which has long been tilted toward complicated rules, poor coverage, and corporate profits.
If a private insurer raises premiums without explanation, you could choose the public option instead. If a doctor is dropped from a network because of a contract dispute, there would be a competitive alternative. If you run a small business and struggle to offer benefits, there would finally be a plan designed for affordability, reliability, and accountability.
We cannot control what Washington does. But we can control what Maine does.
Maine families deserve better than uncertainty. As governor, I will fight every day to make health care more affordable, more accessible, and more focused on what truly matters: your health.