In a column (Sun Journal, Aug. 19), Gordon Weil paints a simplistic picture of MaineCare as the primary cost driver of Maine’s health care spending. He suggests, as have some policymakers, that the state has simply funded MaineCare too generously and could control costs by reducing eligibility.

Most citizens do not know the details of programs such as MaineCare, but do know that it is expensive in a time when people can least afford it. Articles such as Weil’s are appealing because they sound like good common sense. But common sense also ought to tell us that when we poke at a problem in one place, it pops up in another. MaineCare is one of those problems.

The recession, if anything, has increased the need for access to health care.

To deny people access — especially in these economic times — would cost us all more in the long run than it would save. Cutting MaineCare eligibility might save on health care for a few thousand Mainers, but it also means they will cost us more by getting their care from hospitals and emergency rooms.

Those costs are much greater and are not miraculously absorbed by the hospitals. They pop back up in the form of higher private health insurance costs and hospital fees.

Another example of the pop-up syndrome: Reducing MaineCare coverage for mental health care means greater costs shifted to towns and counties. As police departments and jails take on the roles of mental health crisis programs, health care “savings” show up in the form of increased public safety costs and property tax pressure.

As president of the Maine Children’s Alliance, I am all too familiar with the decreased availability to MaineCare for education-related health care services. Local superintendents and school boards are left to manage by relying on property tax dollars set aside for health care related to special education mandates.

This sort of cost shifting is shortsighted. As Maine’s leaders face hard budgetary decisions, they must keep long-term goals in mind rather than cause problems to resurface — oftentimes worse than before.

Dean Crocker, Augusta

President, Maine Children’s Alliance