In just 75 words last night, Hannah Pingree laid bare the reason why the election of our next governor is so important. Her social media statement on X made it plain why a Governor Pingree would not only continue the epic policy disasters of the Mills administration, but in fact worsen them.

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Commenting on the recent struggle between nurses and administrators at CMMC in Lewiston and NMMC in Fort Kent, Pingree blamed the problem on “corporate balance sheets” and “corporate decisions” for putting “essential access to health care at risk.” Similarly, her campaign website claims our healthcare woes stem from a system that “prioritizes profits over patients.”

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Here’s the problem. CMMC is owned by Prime Healthcare Foundation, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit public charity which is prohibited by federal law from earning a profit. After nearly fifteen years in state government, six-and-a-half of them at the right hand of Governor Mills, one would think this is something that Pingree, or those closest to her who advise her, would have looked into before publicly commenting.

Then again, it was Pingree who, as Speaker of the House, left behind a budget that ignored a debt of $750 million to our hospitals. She seems to have not learned from that lesson either.

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Virtually every hospital in Maine is a non-profit organization heavily reliant on federal Medicare and Medicaid for its revenue. Medicare’s reimbursement rates are set by a federal formula, but decisions on Medicaid funding are made in Augusta, and for the last eight years state government has steadfastly refused to provide funds sufficient enough to keep critical healthcare programs from closing.

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Pingree seems to live in an imaginary world where corporations are the root of all evil, and government is the solution to all our problems. In reality, corporations like Cianbro, L.L. Bean, and SAPPI, provide meaningful employment to thousands of hard working Mainers, support state and local governments with huge tax revenues, and drive our economic engine.

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Over the last eight years, state government, on the other hand, has given us crises in healthcare, housing, opioids, property taxes, affordability, public safety and more. Despite playing a leading role in each of these issues, Pingree lists them among her greatest accomplishments.

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Not long ago, Pingree lashed out at Lincoln Hospital in Damariscotta for its decision to close a birthing unit in which a basic birth costs $20,000 but the state’s reimbursement for Medicaid patients paid less than $5,000. It does not take a CPA to see that this financial model is unsustainable and not the result of a non-existent corporate culture at the hospital.

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The second paragraph of a 2024 MaineHealth report by a team of researchers led by Dora Anne Mills, former director of the Maine CDC and Governor Janet Mills’ Sister, reads:

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“The reasons behind these closures are multifaceted. Key among them is the financial strain caused by Medicaid reimbursement rates set by states, which fail to cover the total costs of obstetric care. This issue disproportionately affects rural areas, where Medicaid covers half of all births.”

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Both CMMC and NMMC in Fort Kent barely survived the last few years under President Biden’s runaway inflation and Governor Mills’ runaway electric bills and too-low Medicaid reimbursements. To survive, CMMC sold out to Prime last February, while NMMC partnered last year with Houlton Regional Hospital, all of which still struggle to hang on.

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In the past eight years Maine has seen the closure of 12 nursing homes, 24 assisted living facilities, more than 74 group homes, and 12 hospital birthing units. In nearly every case, leaders who announced the closures cited state government’s failure to properly fund Medicaid. You can see a partial list of these testimonials here: www.bobbyformaine.com/reimbursements.