Over the past several days, Maine’s governor, Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Education have begun to address the serious problems in our state’s compliance with federal Medicaid rules, and will need to rewrite our state rules. They will require much support and understanding in crafting rules that will better serve Maine people.

The two most significant additions to the Social Security Act of 1935 were enactments of Title XVIII (Medicare) and Title XIX (Medicaid) in 1965. Since then, it has been a matter of federal law that certain programs may not bill Medicaid. Throughout the 1970s and 1990s, many states (including Maine) began to use Medicaid to pay for expansion of a variety of community-based health initiatives, leading to tremendous expansion of Medicaid, a number of those initiatives crossed the line of what is billable.

The behavior by states caused the White House to address what it believed to be serious fraud, waste and abuse of public dollars through the Medicaid program, resulting in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which attempts to curtail those abuses by clarifying the original federal rules.

Maine can minimize or eliminate harm to Medicaid beneficiaries (children, seniors and disabled) while, at the same time, create a more hopeful future by prompt implementation of more effective public policy, with full and correct utilization of its highly trained and effective health care work force.

In this process, Maine will be eligible for legitimate reimbursements from the federal government.

John Painter, Lewiston