BRUNSWICK, Maine — Citing the loss of MaineCare coverage, Merrymeeting Behavioral Health Associates notified Brunswick officials on Monday that it will close its Pleasant Street facilities on April 22, putting approximately 170 people out of work.
The organization provides outpatient case management, therapy and support services to adults and children.
In a letter to Town Council Chairwoman Sarah Brayman and officials at the Bureau of Employment Standards and Department of Labor, human resources director Kacie Parker wrote that the decision to close was prompted by a March 22 letter from the state notifying MBH that beginning April 8, MaineCare would no longer cover more than 80 percent of the community-based services the organization provides.
Clinical employees will be terminated on April 8, according to the letter.
Parker wrote that short notice from the state prevented Merrymeeting from providing the 60 days’ notice required when employees are laid off.
A spokesman for the Maine Department of Labor did not immediately return a phone call on Tuesday.
New Rule May Limit Mental Health Services to Thousands
Mainers worried about the loss of mental health services asked the Health and Human Services Committee Friday to block a change to eligibility requirements planned by the LePage administration.
The new rule could potentially move thousands of Mainers with mental illness to less intensive services. Administration officials say individuals will still receive support, but those affected fear they will lose their ability to live independently.
Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew wants to be clear about the change in rules for mental health services. “People are not going to lose access to appropriate services. This has been framed as a cut, as opposed to how do we continue to ensure people are getting the most effective treatment to help support the best possible outcomes for the individuals,” says Mayhew.
The Disappearance of Hillary Clinton's Healthcare Platform
What would happen if the media lifted the curtain on Clinton's healthcare platform and introduced any level of scrutiny to her proposed improvements on the Affordable Care Act?
In an extraordinary magic trick, performed on a national scale, Hillary Clinton's healthcare platform has been disappeared. While policy analysts, news anchors, and columnists have been engaged in an intense debate over Bernie Sanders’s “Medicare for All” proposal, Clinton’s incremental alternative has escaped almost all scrutiny - even among those who say they prefer it.
Combining the election-season writings of our most prolific, liberal-leaning columnists at the New York Times, Huffington Post, Vox, Mother Jones, Politico, The American Prospect, etc. you’ll find dozens of articles critiquing Sanders's single-payer plan. None have mentioned a single Clinton healthcare proposal as a point of comparison - merely that she supports a philosphy of incremental reform.
M.D. Harmon: On Obamacare’s 6-year anniversary, the news isn’t good
Republicans won control of Congress by opposing the Affordable Care Act. But nobody did anything.
The Republican Party is in trouble with many voters, who see that failing to act when action is required is just as bad as doing the wrong thing instead of the right one.
One of the principal reasons Republicans won control of Congress was its opposition to the Affordable Care Act, known popularly as “Obamacare.” But that hasn’t produced much of a result downstream.
Without broad support for a competing measure, pledges like Ted Cruz’s to repeal Obamacare on his first day in office ring hollow.
Part of the party’s dereliction of duty was failing to realize decades ago that the employer-insurance model, supplemented by programs for the elderly, the indigent and uninsured children, was costly, inefficient and unstable. Proposals were floated by think tanks and some exceptionally courageous politicians for improvements focused on giving tax breaks and decision-making power over health care to people rather than reserving them to employers and politicians.
But no one did anything, and that left the field open for an end run from the left, which has always had the (substantially more costly and inefficient) federalization of health care as a major policy goal.
Leaving us where we are today. We’ve just had Obamacare’s six-year anniversary on March 23, and the news isn’t good, to no conservative’s surprise.
Single-Payer 'Medicare for All' Gets Boost From New Study
Ken Terry
Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders' proposal to create a single-payer "Medicare for all" system has drawn criticism because, opponents say, it would lead to a big increase in taxes. But a new study estimates that the federal, state, and local governments paid for 64.3% of US health spending, or $1.877 trillion, in 2013 and that it would not take much higher taxes to finance a single-payer system.
According to David U. Himmelstein, MD, and Steffie Woolhandler, MD, MPH, from the City University of New York School of Public Health at Hunter College, who wrote the article, the government share of national health expenditures will rise to 67.1% by 2024. At that point, they argue, there will be only a 4-point spread between what the US government pays for in our public/private healthcare system and the 71% of Canadian health spending that that country's government spends on its single-payer system.
The article was
published online January 21 in the
American Journal of Public Health.
Newest Policyholders Under Health Law Are Sicker and Costlier to Insurers
WASHINGTON — People newly insured under the Affordable Care Act were sicker, used more medical care and had higher medical costs than those who already had coverage, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association said Tuesday in a new study of its policyholders.
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