During
a recent trip to Camp Victory in Kuwait, Senator
Susan Collins met with 1LT Leon Ordway from Windham,
a member of the 133rd Engineer Combat Battalion.
Members of the 133rd recently returned home from
Iraq, where they were responsible for tracking all
areas of military and civilian operations, engineer
missions, tracking clearance operations, minefield
database upkeep, and contracting infrastructure
improvement projects.
Senator Collins, a member of the Senate Armed Service
Committee, visited Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait
in order to see firsthand and hear from service
members about the progress of Operations Iraqi and
Enduring Freedom. She also met with Iraqi and Afghan
leaders, including Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi
and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, to discuss the
recent elections and prospects for the new governments.
Appropriations
Committee OK's budget News from the Maine Legislature Senate
Majority Office
Augusta--
The Legislature's Appropriations Committee passed
a two-year budget early Saturday, March 19.
The balanced budget increases funding to education
by $250 million in two years, finds more than $425
million in efficiences, and preserves property tax
relief legislation, all without raising broad-based
taxes.
Budget writers were faced with a more than $700
million gap between the cost of existing services
and expected revenues. They also had to fund $250
million in additional education spending - the largest
one-time increase in education funding ever - all
in a two-year period.
Committee members and Democratic and Republican
leadership finally agreed to disagree Thursday night,
opening the way for final budget drafting by majority
Democrats.
The Legislature's Office of Fiscal and Program Review
will work over the weekend to complete drafting
of the $5.8 billion budget. Richardson and Edmonds
plan to bring the budget to the full Legislature
in time for an April 1 enactment.
Here are some of the elements of the budget plan
as of late Friday, March 18:
Democratic proposal restores $59 million in the
General Fund Appropriations to social service and
health care programs that the Governor cut by $140
million.
--Rejects Sunday hunting and non-resident first-day
dear season hunting proposals.
--Reduces the Governor's original hunting, fishing,
and other recreational fee increases proposal from
$3 to $2, raising over $7 million for the Department
of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife.
--Provides additional funding to the University
of Maine system, including an additional $6 million
over the biennium.
--Restores $900,000 to Adult Education programs.
--Increases transportation adjustments for large
rural schools with student enrollments exceeding
1,250 students, by over $1 million.
--Rejects expanding PNMI Tax to private pay residents:
The original proposal to extend the Private Non-Medical
Institution (PNMI) provider tax to private pay residents
was rejected by the Appropriations Committee.
This and other budget updates can be found online
at: www.mainehousespeaker.org/budgetupdates.
Health
insurance reform needed
By Senator Lois Snowe-Mello
The unanimity in recent weeks in our party is bringing
exciting momentum to the issues we believe in.
Most recently, I had the pleasure of participating
in a press conference to call attention to a number
of creative responses to Maine's high cost of health
insurance.
It was my privilege to sponsor and testify on the
first bill, LD 86, aimed at bringing new competition
to the health insurance market in Maine. Can you imagine
that a one-word change in our insurance laws could
open up the field for competition in health insurance?
My bill, LD 86, An Act To Increase the Availability
of Individual Health Insurance in Maine, would do
just that, change one word: "must" to "may."
Under current law, insurance companies hoping to compete
in Maine "must" offer two insurance plans,
a standard and basic, as defined by the superintendent
of insurance, if they want to offer any insurance
at all. Our law actually prohibits them from offering
any insurance, if they choose not to offer these pre-defined
plans.
By changing that "must" to "may offer
the standard and basic," these companies would
be clamoring to offer a variety of other plans to
uninsured or under-insured individuals. Who could
have imagined it could be that simple to propel this
issue into an entire movement aimed at restoring affordable
health insurance to Maine's citizens?
It is motivating to realize I'm not focusing on this
issue alone. There are now more than a half-dozen
bills pending, many that I eagerly co-sponsored, that
could correct the inequities in our healthcare systems
and specifically in the availability of affordable
insurance.
With approval of these pending bills, Maine citizens
could once again have a true choice in their health
insurance options. The directives added to our insurance
regulations over the past decade have done little
more than increase your costs and reduce your choices.
The insurance industry is a business. It wants and
needs to be competitive.
Current Maine law has stymied that competition and
driven the competitors out of state.
Opponents to this pending legislation would like you
to believe that rising health care costs are driving
up insurance costs. They don't want you to know that
Maine is one of just five states in the country where
insurance premiums can be twice as high as other states.
The remaining states, with lower premiums, changed
their legislation much the way these bills would change
Maine's, and competition and lower premiums returned.
Recent administrations responded to rising health
care and insurance costs by creating new subsidies,
ultimately a cost to the taxpayer.
We don't want to perpetuate that problem. We want
to solve it.
The reforms we are proposing will lower the high cost
of premiums, leave more health care choices in the
hands of taxpayers, and reduce the bureaucratic burden
placed on health care providers and hospitals.
High health care costs are a result of increased regulations
as much as medical advancements. Our citizens deserve
the same choices for affordable health care that currently
exist in other states.
If you have thoughts on any of these issues, your
views are important to me. I encourage you to write
or call to let me know what your thoughts or interests
may be.
Senator Lois Snowe-Mello (R-Poland, Senate District
15)
177 Mechanic Falls Road, Poland, 04274
Email: replois@megalink.net, Home: 784-9136, Augusta:
287-1505
