Legislature passes
measure to restore funding for mental health, protect services in small
rural hospitals
March 31, 2008
AUGUSTA – The Maine House passed a measure on Monday night to restore
proposed cuts to mental health services, prevent cuts in reimbursements
to hospital-based physicians who care for patients through the State’s
MaineCare program, and adjust the hospitals’ tax structure in order
to draw down more support from the federal government.
The bill, which was sponsored by Farmington Democrat Janet Mills and
championed by House and Senate Democrats, had bipartisan support in
both chambers. The House and Senate had adopted it as an amendment
to the state budget as proposed by Mills, but the governor said that
he would not support it through the budget, only as a separate bill.
Immediately after passing the supplemental state budget Monday night
with the Mills amendment stripped, the House and Senate took up a new
bill containing identical language and passed it quickly through both
chambers. It will now go to Governor Baldacci, immediately after the
budget, who has said that he will sign it into law.
“
The people who count on Franklin Memorial, and other rural hospitals
across Maine ought to be able to rely on the state to pay for the life-saving
services they provide,” said Mills. “It’s necessary
for them to provide quality care to everyone in the region, and to keep
overall health care costs down. And the services that were on the chopping
block for people with mental illnesses and retardation were especially
hard to imagine.”
The bill will recover funding for mental health services that had been
cut in the state budget, including crisis services, community integration
and home care for people with mental illnesses and mental retardation.
The bill also prevents a proposed cut in reimbursements to physicians
who serve MaineCare patients in hospitals. The state pays for those
services at specific rates, and the Governor had proposed a reduction
in those rates in his budget package. Many rural legislators -who represent
districts with more MaineCare patients - were worried that the cut
to reimbursements would hurt the hospitals in their district and have
a negative impact on services for all hospital patients.
The bill restores the cuts to mental health care and hospital reimbursements
by rebasing the tax structure for hospital in order to draw down more
federal matching funds.
“
It’s a win-win situation, and I’m glad that we were able
to move it through along with the state budget,” said House Majority
Leader Hannah Pingree, D-North Haven. “This has been a challenging
budget, and we were forced to make some cuts that we really didn’t
like. We had an opportunity to save some of them with this measure, and
rural Democrats led the charge.”
The Senate passed the bill immediately after the House, and sent it to
Governor Baldacci for his signature.
Contact:
Travis Kennedy, Communications Director, 287-1433 |
