People were required to set up Medicare and drug plans by Dec. 7, or face penalties. Many of us complied with the rules and regulations of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Now state government wants to force us out of the plans we qualified for, by changing the income limits by up to 50 percent so we don’t qualify now.

Many who never abused the welfare programs were qualified under the rules and regulations put to us for the year 2012. It seems unfair now to force us out because they are changing the rules.

We aren’t MaineCare recipients, nor Medicaid recipients, according to DHHS. We entered a program called a Buy-In. And for the most part, we had to get our own supplemental and drug plans.

The powers in the state should go after fraudulent recipients and fraudulent clinics that have raked in tens of millions of dollars, which we are paying for. The state could create jobs to investigate the corruption in the systems and save the waste instead of forcing those of us who are not cheating the systems to pay for those who are. Is that asking too much?

Corruption in the state of Maine with regards to insurance has been going on for decades. Have you ever seen even one bureaucrat in Augusta or Washington going after the criminals and cutting out the waste? I didn’t think so. That would be too easy.

Better to pin our ears to the wall and drive us from the lower middle class into the poverty level so they can dole out more welfare money. No wonder we are known as the welfare state.

Essie Golden

Bingham