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Advocates Denounce LePage Plan to Cut Anti-Smoking Fund

AUGUSTA, Maine - Advocates and health care providers say Gov. Paul LePage's plan to divert money from a fund that supports community anti-smoking programs is the wrong approach.

LePage wants to take $20 million a year from the Fund for a Healthy Maine, which is made up of tobacco settlement dollars, to maintain higher Medicaid reimbursement rates for primary care physicians. The proposal is part of his $6.3 billion budget proposal.

Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew says that current anti-smoking efforts aren't working. She says that investing in primary care is a more effective and targeted method to reducing smoking rates.

But Dr. Daniel Onion, a primary care physician in Augusta, said Monday that the proposed budget would "dismantle a crucial part'' of Maine's public health system.