Former Maine Democratic Gov. John Baldacci said Friday he was “taken aback” by a new television ad that blames Baldacci for putting the state into Medicaid debt to the state’s 39 hospitals. The ad calls on Mainers to support Republican Gov. Paul LePage. It was produced by Maine People Before Politics, a group that supports LePage.

“I always thought that in leadership in Maine we always wanted to demonstrate best practices, both parties working together and [showing] respect for each other and being able to separate personality from the policies,” said Baldacci, who appeared Friday at Husson University to talk about his involvement with the national Fix the Debt campaign. “And obviously in this administration that doesn’t happen. It becomes a very personal attack, and very personally motivated and not policy motivated.”

The ad states that Baldacci “walked out” on $484 million of hospital debt that threatened layoffs and threatened care.

Baldacci called the ad an erroneous “red herring” that was trying to take attention away from LePage’s unpopular state budget proposal.

“I think that budget isn’t even supported by Republican legislators, towns and cities or in education,” Baldacci said. “And I think that he doesn’t want the discussion to be on the budget — it’s everything else but the budget.”

Baldacci said the debt began to accumulate before he took office because of the state’s outdated payment policy, in which it reimbursed hospitals after receiving bills, which could have been a year or two after the hospitals incurred the costs.

In 2006, Baldacci struck a deal with the Maine Hospital Association that put hospitals first in line for any surplus funds at the end of a budget year. Baldacci and hospital officials expected the arrangement would yield $82 million in state funds by 2010 that could be leveraged into a $221 million Medicaid debt paydown with federal matching funds included.

Four years later, LePage made a campaign issue of paying back the state’s hospitals, and, during his first months in office in 2011, he negotiated a supplemental budget that included $66.8 million in state funds for the hospitals, which translated into a $247 million total payment with federal funds. That payment brought Maine’s debt current through the first half of 2009. The existing debt dates to mid-2009.

Baldacci said he is still undecided on whether to run for a new term as governor, but that “it appears the flag is being planted in terms of this campaign starting.” The hospital ad had the appearance of a campaign attack ad that “looks and smells like politics,” he said.

In a statement released Thursday, Baldacci said “Gov. LePage prefers to fight rather than govern. There’s bipartisan agreement on the need to repay the hospitals, but the governor can’t take ‘yes’ for an answer. The governor should be focused on the state budget, where his plans would raise property taxes, cut education and hurt the economy.”

“To me, the ad is not true. It should be reviewed and taken down. This kind of campaign has no place in Maine,” Baldacci said.

U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud, who has said he also is considering a run for governor, and LePage faced off Wednesday over the push to expand Medicaid.

In a strongly worded statement issued Wednesday in response to Michaud’s endorsement of the Medicaid expansion, LePage said the federal reimbursement rate for Mainecare has significantly decreased over the past three years.

“The decrease in rates has created massive financial hardship for Maine. We have yet to receive any guarantee from the federal government that it can fully fund Medicaid expansion,” he said.

LePage said Maine is facing significant budget problems as a result of the last Medicaid expansion, which he said was financed temporarily by federal stimulus money and neglected to pay Maine’s 39 hospitals, resulting in a half-billion dollar debt.

LePage also noted that the federal debt has more than doubled since Michaud has been in Congress.

BDN reporter Robert Long contributed to this story.