“The Pingree Way” Will Not Solve the Problem in Damariscotta. It Caused it.

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It is hard to tell if Hannah Pingree is clueless about the cause of the pending shutdown of the birthing unit at Damariscotta’s Lincoln Hospital, or she thinks voters are.

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To fix the problem, Pingree listed three “concrete steps” she will take as governor:

• A statewide moratorium on labor and delivery closures for a full year.
• Pressure on the federal government to lift the cap on the Rural Health Transformation Fund.
• A maternity care summit.

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First, governors do not have the authority to force private businesses to continue operating against their will, something a person with her years in government ought to know by now. Second, given how thoroughly she and Governor Mills have poisoned the state’s relationship with the federal government, exactly what pressure would she bring to bear?

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And finally, there is “The Pingree Way” of managing government. Call it the “working group, blue ribbon commission, task force, summit” method that results in a 60-page report and accomplishes nothing. This is how Pingree failed at every initiative she was given in the Mills administration. Housing – Maine’s wage/rent gap is growing; Opioids – five years of record overdose deaths; Children – biggest decline in well-being of any state; Climate – Emissions grew faster than all but two states, our reliance on fossil fuels increased, and on and on, failure after failure.

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Her strategy for Damariscotta is to wait. “Statewide, we need to hit pause for a year until the next governor takes office and has time to act.” As the current governor’s hand-picked successor and an integral leader in the current administration, why do we have to wait for action? As the leader of the Maine Children’s Cabinet for more than five years, why didn’t Pingree address this problem years ago?

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All of this is a simple case of avoidance. Anyone paying attention understands the real problem that has put Lincoln Hospital’s birthing unit in line to become the ninth such unit in Maine to close since Pingree took her leadership role in state government. In a word, it is Medicaid.

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With her first act as governor, Mills expanded Medicaid coverage to include working-age, able-bodied, childless adults. Then, along with her Democratic allies in the legislature, she refused to properly fund the program for years, leaving healthcare facilities across Maine with no alternative but to close.

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One hospital, twelve nursing homes, the state’s largest assisted living group, dozens of group homes for disabled adults, and more have all closed, citing the state’s Medicaid reimbursement rates that pay less than 80% of the actual cost of some services. No provider can absorb a loss of 20% and survive, and last year, the Medicaid program fell $118 million short.

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More than a third of births in Maine are covered by Medicaid which reimburses hospitals just $4,607 for each. Private insurance averages more than three times that rate at $14,630. Lincoln Hospital lists its cost at $21,151. This shortfall forces hospitals to shift costs to private insurers, driving up premiums. It is a situation obvious to anyone paying attention.

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The solution to this problem was simple. Somewhere in the billions of dollars in increased spending over the last seven years, Pingree, Mills, and their colleagues should have adequately funded Medicaid. But, they chose not to, and instead focused on other, wasteful priorities. Now we’re seeing the consequences play out all over Maine as a disaster in our healthcare system.

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