Why Maine’s big well being division is worrying lawmakers once more
A model of this text was initially revealed in The Each day Transient, our Maine politics e-newsletter. Join right here for each day information and perception from politics editor Michael Shepherd.
Issues are by no means simple on the Maine Division of Well being and Human Companies. The monolithic company takes up roughly a 3rd of the state finances, brings in large quantities of federal cash and runs many essential applications.
Over the previous few weeks, lawmakers from each events have keyed in on the company for a mixture of outdated and new issues which have come to the forefront, led by lengthy cellphone waits for companies and the deaths of Mainers in state guardianship that drew consideration to a long-unfollowed legislation.
The context: All of this comes on high of different points going through the company. They embrace a long-struggling youngster welfare system that drew one other crucial report from a watchdog late final yr and fraught contract negotiations between the administration of Gov. Janet Mills and the Maine Service Workers Affiliation, which have been lots of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} aside in talks.
A lot of this stuff are linked on this large division. Final month, the federal authorities warned states together with Maine that lengthy name middle wait instances have been doubtlessly in violation of federal Medicaid necessities. It is a broader situation, with a state report in April discovering common wait instances of greater than two hours within the Workplace of Household Independence.
Commissioner Jeanne Lambrew instructed the Related Press that the problems got here in a “tradeoff” attributable to an enormous inflow of MaineCare purposes because the federal authorities winds down pandemic-era Medicaid eligibility guidelines. Critics of the division on this situation, led by progressive Sen. Mike Tipping, D-Orono, are urgent the Mills administration on staffing plans.
The guardianship points have been dropped at mild in a latest article from the Maine Monitor, which discovered that eight adults within the state’s care died throughout the previous three years underneath circumstances that would not be totally defined. One was dominated a murder, although it was not prosecuted. There’s an open investigation in one other case, and a division spokesperson mentioned the state is “dedicated to the well-being of people topic to public guardianship.”
This drew consideration to a 1997 legislation that instructed the division to offer data on such deaths to the legislative committee that oversees the division. It apparently has by no means been adopted, and lawmakers at the moment are agitating for change on that entrance.
“Clearly, the legislation is being ignored,” Sen. Stacey Guerin, R-Glenburn, mentioned in a radio deal with final week.
What’s subsequent: These points are like many others going through the division. They aren’t precisely new, and they’re linked to different areas of presidency from staffing shortfalls to the court docket and legislation enforcement programs. Count on to see new proposals in these areas when lawmakers come again to Augusta in January.
