The two insurers selling plans to Maine consumers under the Affordable Care Act want to raise rates in 2015, but well below the double-digit average hikes cropping up in some other states. The proposed rates offer a tentative first look at how much insurers seek to charge during the second year of Healthcare.gov, a cornerstone […]
Affordable Care Act
Posted inMaine
Was LePage right on Medicaid expansion? Republicans, officials divided
AUGUSTA — Officials in the state of Arkansas are saying “not so fast” to claims being made by leaders in Maine’s Republican Party that an expansion of Arkansas’s Medicaid program has led that state to fiscal crisis and Maine was wise not to expand its low-income health care program. Amy Webb, communications director for the […]
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Posted inNation / World, sj-web
Cover Oregon calls it quits
DURHAM, Ore. — After months of trying to get its problem-plagued online health exchange to work, Oregon on Friday officially gave up on the state portal and decided to switch to the federal website — the first state in the nation to do so. An early adapter and early enthusiast of the Affordable Care Act, […]
Posted inBusiness, sj-web
Harvard Pilgrim may join ACA marketplace in Maine
PORTLAND — Mainers will likely get another option under the Affordable Care Act insurance marketplace next year. Harvard Pilgrim Health Care told the Portland Press Herald (http://bit.ly/1i7pi52 ) that it plans to join a co-op, Maine Community Health Options, and Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, in the marketplace. An official said Harvard Pilgrim, which […]
Posted inMaine, sj-web
Survey: Mainers struggle to pay medical bills — even those with insurance
Many Maine residents, even those with health insurance, struggle to afford their medical bills, a new statewide survey has found. While the poorest Mainers reported the most difficulty affording health services, more than a quarter of residents with health coverage ran into trouble paying medical bills, according to the survey released Wednesday by the Maine […]
Posted inLetters
L. Moore: Obamacare works well for me
The political cartoon in the March 15 Sun Journal was childish and pathetic. The Affordable Care Act is our president sending a train off a bridge? Really? In my family’s case, that is far from the truth. We are an ACA success story. In 2013, I left a full-time job, and my family lost the […]
Posted inMaine
No health insurance? You have 15 days and counting
LEWISTON — Nearly every day, Cheri-Ann Parris — an enthusiastic 23-year-old Bates College grad with a warm Barbados accent — approaches perfect strangers and talks up the Affordable Care Act. It’s the law. There’s a deadline. And, she likes to add, isn’t health insurance a good thing to have? “‘You need to take care of […]
Posted inMaine, sj-web
LePage administration continues campaign against Medicaid expansion
Agriculture Commissioner Walter Whitcomb said the state’s natural resource agencies — Agriculture, Conservation, Marine Resources, Environmental Protection, and Inland Fisheries and Wildlife — had lost $13 million in state funding in just five years, a reduction he attributes to regular annual shortfalls in the the Department of Health and Human Services, which administers MaineCare. “We […]
Posted inLetters
C. Saddlemire: Poorest Mainers being left out
Obamacare has made it possible for millions of Americans to have the affordable health insurance they deserve, and I’m one of them. During the past two years, while serving on City Council and attending graduate school, I earned very little income and found the most affordable way to maintain some health insurance coverage was a […]
Posted inOur View
ACA giving health care . . . and options
There was a young mother out there working 40 hours a week who wanted to work fewer hours so she could spend time with a child. Then there was a 62-year-old who had saved enough money to retire and wanted to. There was a person with a great idea who wanted to develop her own […]