Every line item in the state budget is important to somebody, making it impossible to cut spending without some objection.

Gov. Paul LePage’s package of changes to balance the current budget, which runs through June, has about $25 million in cuts, including some that will draw criticism from the people involved. But it also has at least one cut that would affect a lot of people who don’t know it and can’t object.

Additional Photos

Elisabeth DelPrete, D.O., center, chair of the University of New England's department of family medicine, is shown meeting last year with first-year medical students. Legislators would be wise to continue funding the Doctors for Maine's Future program, which helps Maine students pay for medical school. 2010 Press Herald file photo

Those are the people of rural Maine who may not get adequate access to a physician’s care in 2020 or beyond because shortsighted lawmakers tried to save some money by cutting a medical school scholarship program in 2011.

On the block is the state’s $125,000 commitment to the Doctors for Maine’s Future program, which helps Maine students in a Maine-based medical program pay for their schooling. The relatively inexpensive program is aimed at shifting the economics that leave many parts of the state underserved by primary care physicians.

Medical school is expensive, and new doctors can emerge with $100,000 or more in student loans, which they have to begin paying back within a short time of getting out of school.

For certain specialists or doctors in large markets, that is not a problem because they can quickly expect to earn enough income to pay off their loans.

But that calculus drives young doctors away from primary care and rural areas, creating a shortage of the kind of medical care people need most.

Rural Mainers without a regular doctor are more likely to postpone preventative care and wait until they are really sick before they get treatment. That is not only the most expensive way to care for them, it’s much riskier for the patient.

The Doctors for Maine’s Future program recruits students with strong ties to Maine and helps them get through school with more manageable debt. That leaves the door open to a young doctor opening a primary care practice in an underserved area.

The House and Senate will have to approve the supplemental budget for the cuts to take effect. We urge members of the Legislature to find the money somewhere else in the nearly $5 billion budget.

A decade from now, rural Mainers will thank them.

Related Stories