The Federal Government Must Address the Health Care Crisis

Hello, this is Governor Janet Mills, and thank you for listening.

Let's take a step back through our nation's history for a moment.

In the 1930s, it was the federal government that created the Social Security system, a lifeline for millions of people that was created after the Great Depression. It was in the 1950s that President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican, created the Interstate Highway System, also a lifeline, a network of safe roads connecting Americans from coast to coast. It was the federal government that created the Civil Rights Act and sent a man to the moon.

Look, when the federal government finally recognizes the depth of a problem that requires a national solution, it can make historic changes that improve the lives of every American. Yet today, while millions of Americans are unable to afford basic life-saving health care, a universal need that requires federal action, the federal government does nothing. When it comes to one of the most fundamental needs of American families, the federal government is just standing down. In fact, in many respects, they're making health care less affordable, more costly.

Well, here in Maine, we've been working hard to expand health coverage for small businesses, for self-employed people, for families across Maine, and we've tried to make that coverage more affordable. On my first day in office, for instance, I expanded MaineCare in accordance with the will of the people. At one point, more than 100,000 people had health care through MaineCare expansion, which includes preventive care like cancer screenings.

We also expanded health care for children and mental health services across the state. And we enacted the Made for Maine Health Coverage Act, which established the state-based insurance marketplace, CoverME.gov, and which made many preventative care visits either free or at least less costly.

We were doing pretty well, but if the federal government allows enhanced health care tax credits to expire at the end of this month, health coverage for more than 60,000 people in Maine will be unaffordable. I wrote to Maine's Congressional Delegation back in September urging them to extend those tax credits. Now it's Open Enrollment time in Maine -- when people eligible for health insurance can sign up for health insurance for next year under the ACA -- and many people are already seeing their health insurance rates skyrocket.

One man from Cumberland said if his premiums increase, as he expects, health insurance will be the single largest expense for his family -- more than his mortgage. A woman in Dover-Foxcroft said she owns her own mental health practice, and that a loss of insurance reimbursement would make it impossible to keep her doors open. Well, that would not only leave her without a livelihood, but would also leave hundreds of her patients without access to care.

Well, there are so many stories all around Maine like this, and every one of them breaks my heart because it doesn't have to be this way. The bottom line is, without these health insurance tax credits, more people will be forced to go without health insurance because they can't afford it, and they'll delay care until they wind up in the emergency room or with medical debt that lasts a lifetime. Hospitals across Maine will have to bear more of the cost of uncompensated care or uninsured care because of many people going without insurance. Some of those health care providers may have to cut back services or even close, leaving many folks without access to care, and leaving communities without some of their largest employers.

It was good bipartisan federal action in the 1960s that created Medicare. It was bipartisan federal action that brought us the Interstate Highway System, the unemployment system, Social Security. The health care crisis in this country today begs for strong action on the part of the federal government. The time has come to address the health care crisis.

Doctor Jeffrey Barkin, former president of Maine Medical Association, wrote recently in a column: "Getting sick is not partisan. Losing health insurance is not partisan. Bankruptcy is not partisan. Illness does not check who you voted for," he said. "Or how you feel about Congress or whether your state is red or blue. When a child spikes a fever or a parent hears the word cancer, politics fall away. Only people remain."

The President and Congress must extend the enhanced tax credits before they expire to prevent health care costs from skyrocketing for people across our country and people here in Maine -- people who have started their own businesses, gone out on their own with the support of those health care tax credits -- and they can't do without them.

This is Governor Janet Mills, and thank you for listening.