Maine
Maine manages to retain most Medicare enrollees even as pandemic-era protections end • Maine Morning Star
As pandemic-era protections end, Maine has managed to keep almost 70 percent of people formerly relying on state healthcare on Medicaid, a rate better than the national average and many other states.
More than 300,000 Mainers have renewed their MaineCare coverage so far, according to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services. MaineCare is the state’s name for federal Medicaid, which provides health coverage to millions of low-income adults, children, pregnant individuals, elderly adults and people with disabilities.
Approximately 13 percent of all renewals have been terminated, either due to procedural reasons such as an incomplete form or missing information, or due to enrollees being deemed ineligible. The rest are applications pending manually or automatic renewals.
That amounts to an enrollment decline of 16,000 people from MaineCare, according to Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, which tracks data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on the Medicaid unwinding.
During the COVID-19 public health emergency, the federal government offered states extra benefits to keep people enrolled in Medicaid. So even if an individual’s income increased and they no longer qualified, they still retained free dental, mental and health care benefits.
That coverage, known as continuous enrollment, officially ended in March 2023. So starting in spring 2023, states had approximately a year to redetermine eligibility and terminate coverage for people who would no longer be eligible. Maine started unwinding last April, and the unwinding period ends this October.
States have had varying success rates retaining healthcare coverage for residents, with states such as Oregon and Arizona keeping more than 80 percent of enrollees covered with state Medicaid programs, while millions of Texans lost Medicaid coverage.
The national average was a 63 percent retention rate, according to Allie Gardner, a research fellow at Georgetown.
“Medicaid enrollees largely had greater protections from disenrollment in Maine than they did in other states.”
There is no one clear reason Maine successfully kept most people who need MaineCare enrolled in the program, according to John Gale, a senior research associate at the Maine Rural Health Research Center within University of Southern Maine.
“It’s a combination of factors, I think; manageable population, reasonable policies, a smaller number of enrollees to track down, and an accepting political climate,” he said.
“Part of it is we don’t see the same level of anxiety or anger towards people on Medicaid. I mean, we pretty much accepted that this is an important safety net program for people who don’t normally, who may not qualify for coverage under the marketplaces.”
Maine’s start to unwinding was with noncompliance
Despite this overall success, the state had an uphill battle to keep most eligible Mainers covered under MaineCare when unwinding began.
In April 2023, Maine was one of the only states not in compliance with CMS because it was not offering any passive renewals, called ex parte renewals, for people already on Medicaid. Through ex parte renewals, an existing member’s eligibility can be determined automatically through available data sources, such as income data, without requiring action by the enrollee, which saves time and paperwork for state employees.
Until August 2023, all MaineCare renewals had to be done manually, but when CMS did their review of state compliance of federal renewal requirements prior to the unwinding, they found that Maine was not in compliance, Gardner said. CMS then worked with the state’s health department to develop mitigation strategies until they were able to get their ex parte system up and running.
One of the included the state not being able to terminate any coverage until there was an ex parte renewal either automatically through the system, or through manual workarounds with employees replicating that ex parte process, Gardner said.
“Considering where Maine was at the start of the unwinding with no ex parte renewals, I’d actually say it’s pretty impressive where they are,” she said.
“Cumulatively, Maine’s ex parte rate is right around 25 percent, and there are states that were doing ex parte and had those systems in place that have far lower ex parte renewals throughout the unwinding.”
Lowest rate of procedural disenrollments across the country
There are two ways someone enrolled in Medicaid can lose their coverage during unwinding: if they are deemed ineligible based on the updated eligibility requirements, or if they are disenrolled due to a missing form or information.
Only 20 percent of Mainers who were up for renewal were procedurally disenrolled, according to Georgetown data, which is the lowest procedural disenrollment rate of all states. The vast majority of disenrolled people were not deemed eligible under the updated requirements.
Because Maine was not able during those first few months of unwinding to end someone’s coverage until they had an automatic system, Gardner said this basically meant that the first few months of Maine’s unwinding, no one was terminated from coverage if they had missing or incomplete information, or if they were unresponsive.
A Massachusetts photographer was seriously injured when he was stabbed during a wedding reception last month in Raymond, Maine.
Donald Halsing, 26, was hospitalized for five days after the stabbing on May 23. NBC affiliate News Center Maine reported that 26-year-old Andrew Manderson was arrested and charged with elevated aggravated assault.
Still recovering, Halsing told NBC10 Boston the attack came out of nowhere — one moment, he was snapping photos on the dance floor, while the next, he was searching for help as blood spilled onto his camera.
“I was sitting there in that chair thinking, ‘There’s a real possibility I could die here,’” Halsing said. “Immediately, I put my hand on my chest here to try and stop the bleeding, get some pressure on it, and started yelling for help.”
Halsing was working at the reception at the Kingsley Pine Campgrounds. He took his last photo at 9:01 p.m., minutes before the stabbing.
“One of the wedding guests came up to me and started asking questions about our business,” he said.
Halsing said it was nothing out of the ordinary, and he tried to explain his photography business to the inquiring guest through the pulse of the DJ booth and celebrating guests.
“I thought he was going to reach in his back pocket for his phone, and instead, he didn’t pull out his phone — he pulled out a pocket knife and stabbed me,” he said.
Manderson, who faced a judge days later, is a cousin of the bride.
“There was this look in his eyes that he wasn’t quite all there,” Halsing said.
Halsing’s fiancée, Ashley Wall, was feet away as he struggled to stay awake. She has been his photography partner for eight years since they met at Framingham State University, and she was helping him work the wedding.
“People who were around me, they asked, ‘What can we do to help you? What do you need?’ And I said, ‘Please go check on Ashley. Please go check on my fiancée,’” he recalled.
Halsing spent five days in the hospital suffering from two lacerations to his liver, ultimately developing a blood clot in his left leg. But the road to recovery exceeds his physical wounds as he contemplates his mental state when he resumes photography next year.
“I’m also worried about what lingering effects there might be,” he said. “If we get out on the dance floor and I start remembering what happened, I don’t know how I’m going to react.”
Halsing still doesn’t know why he was attacked.
Manderson was released on $50,000 bail and is due back in court in October.
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This story will be updated.
The Maine Department of Transportation is moving to slash up to $400 million in projects from its agenda, a shocking and abrupt cutback that is rattling the state’s construction industry at the start of building season.
Roughly $50 million across six pavement projects have already been delayed, according to a memo exclusively obtained by the Bangor Daily News. The agency plans to cut or delay another $150 million in bridge, highway, intersection and multimodal projects later this month. A further $200 million or more in cuts are planned in the next three-year work plan.
Those figures were outlined by Transportation Commissioner Dale Doughty in the May 18 memo to Gov. Janet Mills that has since circulated widely in the transportation sector, which has been getting drip-by-drip details on the wide scope of the cuts over the past three weeks.
It comes at the beginning of the state’s relatively narrow construction season. Companies have hired workers and ordered materials for projects they expected to begin this summer. The severity of the transportation budget problems was not raised to lawmakers during the 2026 legislative session.
Kelly Flagg, executive director of the Associated General Contractors of Maine, called the shortfall “deeply troubling” in a statement.
“We stand ready to work with policymakers, stakeholders, and industry partners to identify both immediate and long-term solutions,” Flagg said. “Maine cannot afford to fall further behind.”
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The cuts stem from a structural funding gap of at least $130 million in the state’s current work plan, according to Doughty’s memo. Losses are magnified because state money from the gas tax and other revenue sources is matched by federal funds. Lawmakers have long grappled with politically difficult long-term problems with the state’s transportation budget.
A Mills spokesperson said Wednesday morning that the administration was working on a response to questions from the BDN. The department says it needs roughly $240 million more in state capital funding annually to maintain the existing system, and that anything less than $200 million will erode it over time.
Doughty’s memo the only near-term solution is a series of bonds beginning as soon as possible. Lawmakers would have to return to Augusta to authorize that if one is going to appear on the November ballot.
The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set news policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com
Michael Capeci is the former chairman of the Bangor GOP.
Let’s be honest about Maine’s current state.
For many families, the cost of living has become unsustainable. Housing is out of reach for many young people. Energy bills keep rising. Many small businesses are struggling under taxes and regulations that make it harder to grow. Rural hospitals are under strain and despite years of increased state spending, the results are not showing up in people’s daily lives.
Concurrently, Maine continues to lose young workers to other states. That is not a statistic, it is a warning sign.
To me, the question in this Republican primary for governor is not about slogans. It is whether we continue with a political approach that has failed to reverse these trends, or whether we nominate someone with new ideas. I think that someone is Owen McCarthy.
Owen is not a political insider. He is an entrepreneur from Patten, a small town where opportunity is not assumed, it is built. He grew up in a working-class family, became the first in his family to graduate from college graduating from the University of Maine, and founded MedRhythms, a healthcare technology company focused on neurological treatment.
He didn’t just talk about opportunity. He built it. That distinction matters, because Maine’s problem is not a lack of debate it is a lack of results. We have seen the trajectory: higher costs, slower growth, and a steady outmigration of young workers. I believe Owen McCarthy represents a break from that pattern.
His Maine 2040 plan focuses on creating 50,000 new jobs in sectors where Maine has real advantages — maritime and defense, advanced forest products, and life sciences. These are export-driven industries tied directly to Maine’s workforce, geography, and institutions. What sets Owen apart is not only what he proposes, but how he approaches governing.
He prioritizes modernizing permitting so projects do not stall. He supports using technology to reduce costs and increase efficiency. He focuses on making it easier to build, hire, and expand in Maine.
That same practical mindset extends to healthcare. Expanding telehealth, strengthening EMS systems, improving provider flexibility, and shifting toward earlier intervention are not abstract reforms. They are system upgrades designed to improve access while controlling costs.
Maine voters consistently respond to competence. They reward candidates who understand problems and present plans to solve them. I believe they are tired of rhetoric that does not translate into results, and skeptical of politics that prioritizes messaging over execution.
Owen’s approach is grounded in solving the issues that shape daily life — affordability, healthcare access, job creation, and government efficiency. That is not just policy positioning. It is a governing model that speaks directly to voters.
Some will point to his lack of political experience. But I believe Maine’s core problems are not the result of insufficient political experience; they are the result of policies that have failed to deliver measurable improvement. Experience inside a broken system, by itself, is not a solution.
If Republicans want to win, this primary must be taken seriously. From my perspective, it is not about choosing a nominee for governor who can energize the base. It is about selecting someone who can compete in a broader electorate that is frustrated and looking for change.
That requires a candidate who can speak beyond the base, not by abandoning principles, but by demonstrating competence and a credible plan to address Maine’s challenges. I believe Owen McCarthy offers that combination. He represents a shift away from managed decline and toward economic execution.
This is not just another primary. It is a decision about whether Republicans position themselves to win Maine or whether they remain trapped in a cycle of repeating the same strategies and expecting different outcomes.
If Republicans want to compete for Maine’s future, they cannot afford to nominate a candidate who only motivates part of the electorate. They need someone who expands it.
I believe Owen McCarthy is that candidate.
And if the goal is to win Maine, then the choice should be unmistakable
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