State Healthcare

LePage files court-ordered plan to expand Medicaid in Maine – and asks feds to reject it

Portland Press Herald: The LePage administration complied with a court order Tuesday and finally submitted required documents to the federal government to expand Medicaid to 70,000 Mainers – but there’s a catch. Gov. Paul LePage, an expansion opponent, is asking federal officials to deny the application.

“I strongly encourage CMS (U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) to reject the State Plan Amendment that may soon be submitted by the Maine Department of Health and Human Services pursuant to court order,” LePage wrote in a letter sent Friday to Seema Verma, CMS administrator, and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. “If accepted, the SPA would commit Maine to expanding the Medicaid program to an additional 70,000 to 90,000 individuals. However, not one dime of the hundreds of millions of dollars that will be needed to pay for the state’s share of the expansion has been appropriated.”

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