The Maine senator hopes to attract support from both parties with a plan that offers thousands in annual payments to people for their health care.
Joe Lawlor
Staff Writer
Joe Lawlor writes about health and human services for the Press Herald. A 24-year newspaper veteran, Lawlor has worked in Ohio, Michigan and Virginia before relocating to Maine in 2013 to join the Press Herald. He is still considered โfrom awayโ but since then, he has learned what a โdooryardโ is, eaten โwhoopie piesโ drank Moxie and boiled some โlobstahs.โ The stories he enjoys most are when he learns something and meeting inspiring people.
He lives in South Portland - aka โSoPoโ - with his wife, Melanie, and two school-age children.
Medical ethics bill targets drug company payments to Maine doctors
The proposal would restrict gifts and other spending that promote prescribing of opioids in a state that is trying to curtail patient use of the painkillers.
Maine fishermen hooked on Obamacare, but now benefits are threatened
Enrollment levels are high in Maine communities where lobstermen tend to live, and many have coverage for the first time.
Maine’s Sen. Collins co-develops plan to replace Affordable Care Act
It would let states keep the ACA insurance programs they have or try other options, she says, hoping millions would avoid losing health coverage after a repeal of the law.
Collins, King split votes on starting Affordable Care Act repeal
In an overnight vote, Collins voted with all but one fellow Republican to repeal the health care law.
ACA repeal would jeopardize addiction treatment for about 8,300 Mainers, researchers say
The loss of coverage in the state would come amid an opioid crisis in which an average of one person a day dies from an overdose.
LePage budget plan would disqualify thousands from MaineCare benefits
Tightening eligibility for the federal health care program would save the state $33 million while making it one of the stingiest in the nation for helping able-bodied poor adults.
Barriers discourage Maine doctors from providing Suboxone to opioid addicts
Financial and other disincentives make it ‘a lot to ask,’ but recent progress that includes more funding for medication-assisted treatment offers signs of hope.
Maine seventh-graders will need a new vaccine next school year
Forty-seven other states already mandate a booster shot for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, the last of which has surged in the state.
Mainers are signing up for Obamacare in record numbers
Enrollment may surpass the 2016 total by 10 percent, even as Donald Trump and Congress prepare their repeal effort.