The current bill proposing to deny MaineCare to smokers comes at a direct risk to the well-being of the 69,000 smokers on MaineCare. In fact, The American Journal of Public Health reports that each year, approximately 45,000 individuals die as a result of not having health insurance.

Part of the goal of L.D. 216 is to reduce the number of smokers in Maine; however, it is unlikely that the threat of losing one’s health care will be an effective method of accomplishing that goal. Rather, smoking cessation has been proven to be most effective when individuals have access to tobacco-cessation programs, medications, nicotine replacement therapies and counseling services.

Maine should be working to make those services and medications more accessible to individuals on Maine-Care, but instead, this bill punishes them.

Currently, Maine only spends half of what U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends to fund anti-smoking programs. The reason for this is unclear, as increasing funding to such programs would have not only health benefits, but economic ones as well.

The American Lung Association reported that when you add up the cost Maine would save by increasing funding to these programs, the total is $5,036,613. Put another way, every dollar the state spends to help fund tobacco-cessation programs, they will get $1.26 back.

As with any addiction, tobacco dependence is a medical condition, and one of the primary places smokers go to receive help quitting is to their health care provider. To deprive Mainers of health care as well as tobacco-cessation programs is to leave them with little chance for successfully quitting, and an increased chance of mortality.

Mallorie Cronkite and Tamara Pietzke

Social work students at the University of New England

Portland

I heard on the news that a legislator is pondering taking MaineCare away from smokers. Many people die or get sick with cancer who do not smoke, many people who smoke do not get sick or die of cancer. Yes, smoking would be a good thing to quit. What about obesity? Do we take away MaineCare if you are obese? This can cause many health issues as well – diabetes, high blood pressure, etc. What about drinking?

I think we need to concentrate on getting our state back on track and stop targeting groups. If I had my way, alcohol would be an illegal drug, or I would raise the taxes so high you couldn’t afford to drink.

Alcohol kills on the roads, breaks up families, kills in homes with domestic violence, causes abuse to children. I could go on and on.

Please, let’s just get to the important issues. If we had food, shelter and taxes that are fair, we would have a better world. By the way, I do smoke and I am not ashamed of it. I agree with the majority of the no-smoking laws as well.

Janie Lynch

Cumberland

If cuts have to be made, military is place to start 

Recent headlines said that the Air Force plans to purchase 200 refueling airplanes from Boeing for $38 billion, or approximately $190 million for each plane.

Other headlines said “Clinics caught in fight for funds” as the government is trying to cut funding for Planned Parenthood and family planning clinics under Title X. The nationwide yearly cost for Title X is $317 million, or 1.7 airplanes per year.

What are our politicians thinking? The military and defense complex is more important than the citizens of our country? Why is the tea party not looking at cutting military spending first before cutting our citizens’ services?

Who is our enemy? Wake up, it’s us.

Tom Stone

Bridgton 

It was a scant decade ago that George W. Bush entered the White House and promptly squandered the surplus with tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations (pretty much the same thing), and gave a blank check to the military, which managed to find ways to hike up spending to about $2 billion a day, over $1.3 million a minute.

Since the anti-government right had been frustrated in its prior attempts to cut or reduce programs and funding for human services, the Bush administration set out to deliberately destroy the surplus, reduce tax revenue from his base, pump up the military and set the stage for what we’re now witnessing: a new generation of anti-government rightists dropping the hammer, the final act of this scheme to strangle human services and government programs.

In both Washington and Augusta, tax breaks for the wealthy were either extended or expanded. Spending on frivolous military forays and hardware has become absurd.

But the predictable result is that now, right according to plan, “We’re broke.” And the short-sighted solution, the end game, is to eliminate or cut any program having to do with the general welfare and common good: education, health care, government workers, services for millions of marginalized people, environmental rescue, transportation and energy alternatives, etc.

Imagine how much social good could be done, and how much fiscal strain could be lifted from state and local governments and the human services sector, if we just had a fair tax policy and a few days worth of military spending.

Roger Vogt

Portland 

Democrats have no cause to doubt Bowen’s experience

On Feb. 16, Gov. Paul LePage announced Steve Bowen of Rockport as his choice for education commissioner.

Immediately, screams came from Democrats that Steve was not qualified because he had no administrative experience.

I have known Steve for several years. He is a good listener and thoughtful advocate for Maine students. He served Camden/Rockport as a teacher for seven years after teaching for several years in a Virginia school district.

He has three years experience exploring and analyzing the problems of Maine’s educational system. His four years in the state Legislature gave him experience in dealing with budgets and state government.

The Democrats who hold Steve’s lack of administrative experience against him are, I am sure, the same people who elected to the presidency of the United States a man with no administrative experience, a few years as a do-nothing state legislator, and only two years in the U.S. Senate.

Have Democrats ever looked up the definition of hypocrisy?

Helen A. Shaw

Rockport

 

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