State Budget Cuts and Painful Regional Impacts
Balancing fiscal responsibility against economic losses

On Monday Portland Mayor Michael Brennan called a press conference to discuss the ways that proposed cuts to the state's MaineCare budget would hurt Portland.  A large cross-section of the Portland community attended, including the Portland Regional Chamber.  Brennan did a good job outlining the ways that the City, and the entire Portland region, would be impacted:

• More children, elders and needy will lose health care coverage
• Newly uninsured people will use emergency room health care, the most inefficient and expensive kind of health care
• School children will lose Health and Human Services programs, intensifying existing social problems
• Hundreds if not thousands of jobs will be lost in the region's health care economy
• Property taxes and private health insurance costs will both rise as state cuts are shifted onto local property tax payers and privately insured workers.

This week the Governor continued to make his strong case that Maine government must live within its means, and failure to reduce MaineCare spending can only lead to either a shutdown of the entire MaineCare program or a major cut in state aid to local school districts. 

Mayor Brennan spoke about alternatives to the Governor's proposed cuts - new MaineCare case management strategies were prominently discussed - but in truth no one expects the state's MaineCare budget shortfall to be resolved without substantial pain.

In the business community there are two competing thoughts.  On the one hand, we must face fiscal realities and balance the state budget.  On the other hand, we need to do everything possible to avoid the loss of hundreds and hundreds of good paying jobs in our region.

The Legislature's Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee is hard at work this week seeking a bipartisan agreement that does as much as possible to ease the pain of necessary MaineCare reductions.  At the Portland Regional Chamber we remain hopeful that lawmakers will find the best ways to mitigate the pain of necessary MaineCare cuts and balance fiscal responsibility against the economic losses in this region, and across the state.