While I applaud Gov. Paul LePage for earmarking $7.8 million to counter federal Medicaid cuts, this is not enough. We need to expand MaineCare coverage to provide health insurance to all impoverished residents.

I provide counseling care to many poor, uninsured adults. Ideally, these patients would work more to support themselves and pay for coverage, but let me tell you who some of these people are:

• They are men and women in their mid-50s who have worked for years, but because of multiple chronic health issues, can no longer maintain full-time jobs.

• They are young people in their 20s and 30s who try to work, but because of severe mental health and addiction issues (often resulting from childhood abuse and neglect), they cannot keep a job.

• They are post-release felons who apply for many jobs, but never receive a call back, and who, without life structure and medications prescribed in prison, purposely reoffend so they can return to jail.

Maine hospitals/primary care services provide millions of dollars in free care to uninsured patients. But our hospitals cannot financially sustain this, and our patients need MaineCare to access outpatient psychiatric care, mental health case management and medications. Without these services, these adults are unable to work and often end up in emergency rooms, in costly inpatient units, in prison , in some cases, because of sheer desperation and hopelessness, they die by suicide.

We do need to figure out how to reduce misuse of MaineCare benefits, and we need to continue finding ways to make vocational rehabilitation services more available and effective for people with complex health issues. In the meantime, Gov. Paul LePage should expand MaineCare. It is the humane and cost-effective thing to do.

Rebecca Dorr, Mount Vernon

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