I support the Sun Journal’s position (March 8) on the master tobacco settlement money Maine receives every year. That money is called the Fund for a Healthy Maine and the state has done an outstanding job of using those funds to support prevention efforts.

Maine has been successful in using that money to implement evidence-based programs. Research shows that without investing in prevention, we often pay much more for costly illnesses in the future. Currently, 95 cents of every medical-care dollar is spent to treat disease after it has already occurred.

For those reasons, I am opposed to the governor’s budget proposal that cuts 35 percent of the Fund for a Healthy Maine’s program funding and uses those funds for Medicaid. Medicaid is the responsibility of the General Fund.

The proposed cuts to the Fund for a Healthy Maine would eliminate successful programming, including oral health care for kids, home visitations for new mothers, substance abuse prevention and teen pregnancy prevention.

The 119th Legislature designed the Fund for a Healthy Maine specifically to “supplement, not supplant” General Fund expenditures. The governor’s budget eliminates that protection and uses the fund to fill budget gaps, which reverses a decade of bipartisan legislative support. 

While the governor’s budget proposes to dismantle the fund and its 11 years of success, the Legislature has the opportunity to create a budget that sustains Maine’s legacy and supports efforts for becoming the healthiest state in the country.

Brenda M. Joly, Ph.D, Auburn

Editor's note: Brenda Joly, Ph.D., is a board member of Healthy Androscoggin and a faculty member of Health Policy and Management, Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine in Portland.