Leaders condemn passage of budget bill they say will be ‘devastating’ for Maine

After the U.S. House of Representatives finally overcame conservative pushback and passed the massive budget reconciliation package on Thursday, Maine leaders and organizations condemned the spending bill they say will harm Maine people for years to come. 

Gov. Janet Mills decried its passage, calling it an “ugly, purely partisan bill.”

“There is certainly nothing pretty about denying food to hungry children, preventing Maine people from seeing their doctor, or preventing a doctor from being paid,” she said in a statement after the vote. 

Mills said Maine can’t absorb the costs the bill will foist onto the state after slashing federal funding for food assistance and health coverage, among other programs. Her administration will review the final language of the bill in the coming weeks to determine the full impact to the state’s budget. 

The bill’s significant cuts to Medicaid are just one of the areas where the state will be forced to cover costs or risk residents losing access.

An analysis of the package by the nonpartisan health research organization KFF shows it would reduce federal spending on Medicaid in Maine by at least $3 billion over the next ten years.

With a final vote of 218-214, both of Maine’s two Democratic U.S. representatives, Reps. Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden, joined their caucus in voting against the measure. With U.S. Sen. Susan Collins as the lone Republican to oppose the bill in the final Senate vote, Maine’s entire delegation ended up rejecting the budget that makes significant reductions to the social safety net to pay for an extension of the tax cuts passed during President Donald Trump’s first term as well as $170 billion in immigration enforcement and border-related measures. The bill will also add an estimated $3.4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade.

In a statement after the vote, Pingree called the bill “the most harmful, heartless and regressive bill” she has seen in her time in Congress. 

“The impact of this legislation here in Maine will be devastating,” she continued, adding that tens of thousands could lose access to health care and food assistance. 

“It’s an assault on the working class, a gift to the ultra-wealthy, a climate disaster, and a ticking time bomb for the economy.”

Golden said in a statement Thursday afternoon that it could close rural hospitals and “blow up the national debt.”

“This year, we had a real opportunity to pass a budget that put the middle class first,” Golden said. “Instead, from the very beginning, this GOP majority has used a broken, partisan process where the only choices put on the floor seemed to be ‘bad’ or ‘worse.’” 

Collins also cited the threat to rural hospitals as her primary reason for opposing the bill. In a statement after the Senate vote, she said her decision “stems primarily from the harmful impact it will have on Medicaid, affecting low-income families and rural health care providers like our hospitals and nursing homes.” 

The left-leaning Maine Center for Economic Policy said congressional Republicans passed “a shell game into federal law—and working-class Americans are the marks.”

“Any child can tell you that $4 trillion is not the same thing as zero, and yet that’s the math Republicans have used to justify their reckless, debt-exploding plan,” said President and CEO Garrett Martin in a statement. 

The bill also includes a provision barring Medicaid reimbursements for non-abortion health services provided by Planned Parenthood, which the organization has described as a “backdoor abortion ban.” Maine’s reproductive health providers have warned for months that passage of the bill would dramatically impact their ability to stay open, particularly in rural areas, and continue providing essential care.

“Our patients’ lives matter and the politicians who voted in support of taking away health care to give billionaires tax cuts will have to answer to them,” said Nicole Clegg, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England.