AUGUSTA – About 75 supporters of the federal health care reform law gathered outside the State House on Wednesday to rally against what they called “recent attacks” on health care.
Maine Attorney General William Schneider announced Tuesday that he has taken steps for Maine to join a multistate lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of parts of the reform law.
On Wednesday, the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives voted to repeal the law.
“This is not acceptable,” said Jennie Pirkl, the health care organizer for the Maine People’s Alliance, which advocates for low-income Mainers. “People want and need the Affordable Care Act. More than 2,600 people sent postcards to the governor’s office last week telling him how much we want and need this law.”
But Gov. Paul LePage, a Republican, has said he supports Schneider’s decision to challenge the law.
Pirkl said many Mainers support many of the provisions in the law, including the elimination of lifetime insurance caps and insurance companies’ ability to deny coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions, and the provision allowing adults as old as 26 to be covered by their parents’ insurance.
Also speaking in support of the legislation were AARP Maine State President Carol Kontos; Rep. Sharon Treat, D-Hallowell; and Dan Meyer, a small-business owner from Readfield.
Kontos said the lawsuit, which challenges specifically the federal government’s ability to force most citizens to buy health insurance or face fines beginning in 2014, is “counterproductive and harmful for (AARP) members in Maine.”
Treat, a leading Democrat on health care reform issues, said she opposes the lawsuit and a bill proposed by a Republican lawmaker to make it illegal to implement any part of the federal law.
“A repeal will cause real harm to real people,” she said. “The decision to join this suit is in sharp contrast to the bipartisan work that state lawmakers have been engaging in this past year to help Maine implement the important patient protections and benefits of this law.”
Tarren Bragdon, the chief executive officer of the Maine Heritage Policy Center, a conservative-leaning think tank, said he supports the lawsuit and the bill to prevent implementation.
Bragdon was a key member of LePage’s transition team.
“There will be a lot of tinkering with this law over the next two years,” he said, “and so the Legislature should not be premature in implementing a law that may not be there in a couple of years.”
MaineToday Media State House Writer Rebekah Metzler can be contacted at 620-7016 or at:
rmetzler@mainetoday.com
Send questions/comments to the editors.
