Most people made some poor choices as they journeyed through life. Some did not have the best diet and lacked good exercise and developed heart disease, obesity and diabetes. Others misused alcohol and developed liver problems. Still others got hooked on cigarettes and developed lung cancer. No stigma was attached and medical attention was readily available.

Drug abuse and mental illness is a different story. Hundreds of Maine citizens died of drug overdoses last year while the governor was deciding on how and when Narcan (which could have saved some of those lives) would be made available at drugstores without a prescription. Families are struggling to find treatment programs for their loved ones.

Mental health problems aren’t really about bad choices. Most institutional care has been closed down, and citizens are provided with community-based care. Inadequate funding has resulted in many fellow citizens ending up in prisons and jails instead of being adequately treated.

One solution in addressing such problems would be to expand Medicaid coverage. Although the expansion was approved in the Legislature several times, there were not enough votes to override the governor’s veto.

A citizen’s initiative was passed this past November to approve the expansion. Fifty million dollars is one estimate for the state’s share of funding, but that would result in $500 million being provided by the federal government.

It would be a bad choice for the Legislature not to find the state’s share of the funding.

Linwood Gilbert, Turner