Democratic Gov. Janet Mills issued her first executive order on Thursday, to expedite the implementation of the Medicaid expansion law that voters approved over a year ago.
Mills’ order effectively ends bureaucratic delays erected by the LePage administration as it fought the expansion law that will provide health care coverage to roughly 70,000 low-income Mainers.
In a press conference in the governor’s office, Mills said the order hastens a process that the previous administration had failed to complete.
“This thing has been pending too long,” she said.
The order directs the Department of Health and Human Services to change the application process so that Mainers eligible for coverage under expansion are notified and to ensure that those who applied for Medicaid last summer get covered. It also instructs DHHS to partner with hospitals and patient advocacy groups to help enroll eligible Mainers.
“This is so critical. People are dying right now. People are going without preventative care. People are going without primary care, people who may have diagnoses that could have been earlier detected, and diseases earlier detected, and lifesaving medications provided to them because they don’t know that they might eligible for health coverage, health insurance coverage,” she said.
Mills also sent a letter to the federal government clarifying that her administration intends to implement Medicaid expansion while also making changes to Maine’s state plan amendment so that federal funds paying for up to 90 percent of the new coverage can begin to flow.
The order partially fulfills a campaign promise by Mills to implement the voter-approved law, but it focuses primarily on moving forward with actions that the LePage administration never took to comply with the law. That resistance to expansion became the focus of a legal challenge, and a Superior Court judge ordered the LePage administration to implement the law by Feb. 1.
The order does not address the state’s share of costs of Medicaid expansion, but Mills said money exists within the program to fund it right away.
She also said that she’ll propose a more permanent funding source when she presents her biennial budget next month.
