The needs and demands on the program here require spending beyond what other states provide.
--Did you hear about the statistician who drowned in a river that was on average only 1 foot deep?
The problem with looking at averages is that you lose the details. The situation is glossed over and the average number removes the information that might give you insight into the issue.
My newly elected colleague, Rep. Ralph Sarty, feels that Maine's budget solutions are to be found in the averages ("Unsafe roads demand higher priority," Maine Voices, March 4).
Rep. Sarty claims that Medicaid funding is to blame for the current budget shortfall. If it were cut to the "average," all would be fine. But a quick look at the real facts shows that this is a misleading claim.
First, since fiscal year 2006, the consumer price index increased 11.4 percent. During that same time state funding for Medicaid has increased only 5.7 percent. In comparison, due to a voter mandate, state funding for education has increased 32.8 percent.
Second, Maine uses Medicaid money wisely to save other dollars. Other states spend less on Medicaid but then have runaway costs in other budgets like courts, jails and prisons, nursing homes, hospitals and mental health hospitals, etc.
Mainers know that when you provide preventative care, you save money in the long run. That is what Maine does.
Maine people know that if you treat a person for mental health issues in a community setting, you won't have to spend more when they land in a hospital or county jail. If you provide home- based health-care services for the elderly, they won't require more expensive nursing home care. If you ensure that diabetics have access to the medicines they need, they are less likely to require the more expensive hospital care associated with that disease.
Democrats, and some Republicans, have worked hard to put in place these cost-saving measures to aid the most vulnerable in our community.
This year, we are facing the choice of cutting the very services we created to reduce costs and this will drive up the budget in future years.
These are the Medicaid services that children, people with disabilities, families and the elderly need in Rep. Sarty's district and across the state.
If you ask Maine people whether they like paying taxes, of course they will say "no." Yet, when you ask people if we should continue to fund these important services, they say "yes."
They say "yes" because many of them have friends or neighbors whose parents are receiving home-based care or who have a child with a disability. Mainers care about their community and their neighbors.
While Rep Sarty's idea to "cut to the average" may sound simple and easy, it is not. In fact it is bad policy that will make our MaineCare costs skyrocket in the coming years.
We would never keep up with potholes, roads and bridges and other infrastructure problems we face. Nor would we even be able to debate if we should continue with the ever-expanding costs of education.
Please don't get me wrong. I too am concerned about roads throughout Maine and in my community. I am looking closely at the DOT criteria used to prioritize roads for repair. I continue to press for investment in our transportation system.
The money used to fund the building and maintenance of our roads and bridges is entirely separate from money we use on MaineCare and education.
The highway fund is mostly dependent on a fuel tax that has not kept up with the exponentially increasing costs of transportation projects. To blame MaineCare funding on the lack of money in the highway fund is politically cynical at best.
We are now being asked to cut more than $190 million from the biennial budget. Having cut millions of dollars thus far in the three previous years I have served, I assure you, this is no average problem and no average budget year in Maine and many other states.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rep. David Webster, D-Freeport, is a member of the Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee.
— Special to the Press Herald
Copyright © 2008 Blethen Maine Newspapers
