Oasis Free Clinics Remains Committed

As our elected political officials in Washington and Augusta are debating the repeal, replace or rebuilding of the Affordable Care Act ( ACA) or cuts to MaineCare, we in our community are faced with one reality: the continued need for the services provided by Oasis Free Clinics.

Each year, more than 750 people receive free medical and dental care, access to free prescriptions and mental health services at Oasis, thanks to our 95 volunteers and staff.

The services provided to our neighbors is life saving and life changing. We at Oasis Free Clinics are the community’s response to a local health care need for those who cannot afford health or dental care. We are putting our community over the politics that are being discussed in Washington and Augusta. That is because for us and for our community, our people are our greatest asset.

There are an estimated 29 million Americans who still do not have access to health care even with the ACA. In addition, 20 million people may lose their access to health care while millions more with insurance cannot afford their premium, deductible and medication costs. The need for our free services is growing.

Oasis Free Clinics is one of the 1,200 free and charitable clinics that are working at the grassroots level. We receive no federal or state funding to provide health and dental care to those in need. As Oasis has done since 1992, no matter the discussions in Washington or Augusta, we along with our local partners will continue to work to build a healthy community, one person at a time.

Shannon Banks,
Board Chair,
Oasis Free Clinics

LePage Budget a Boon for the 1 Percent

You’ve really got to hand it to Governor LePage. It’s not everybody who could come up with a budget that gives enormous tax breaks to those who need them least, while virtually guaranteeing that seniors and others on fixed or low incomes will suffer by paying proportionately more in property and sales taxes. Thanks to LePage’s out-of-the-box thinking, Maine can join the lofty ranks of states like Alabama and Missisippi which lead the nation in trashing education, the environment and other essential state programs, while also denying the poor access to affordable medical care. With any luck, the governor’s ingenious plan will work, causing droves of those pesky low- income Mainers to die off from increased environmental pollution and lack of medical care, saving Maine’s needy one percenters even MORE tax dollars, so the new budget is a clear win-win.

LePage’s innovative budget also ingeniously complements Congressional Republicans’ legislative attempts to give much-needed tax relief to suffering millionaires nationwide. Under the Affordable Care Act, hard-working day-traders have been forced to pay draconian tax subsidies just so some losers at the bottom of the income scale working 3 part-time jobs can access medical care for trivial complaints like diabetes and cancer. The unfortunate one-percenters forced to pay such unfair taxes have suffered greatly; they have been unable to afford Jaguars and second homes in Palm Beach, having to make do instead with Audis (and even in some extreme cases American vehicles), and with second homes on Martha’s Vineyard. To add insult to injury, these oppressed one-percenters are now not even able to buy cruelly produced luxury fur items under the Ivanka Trump label at Nordstrom’s. This is a national crisis of unprecedented proportions, but thanks to LePage’s proposed budget and Congressional Republicans’ new health care legislation, the worst abuses against Maine’s and the nation’s millionaires will be addressed, at the expense of the lower classes, whom Divine Providence has seen fit to place in poverty, because they are obviously bad people who deserve their miserable lot in life.

Janet Lynch,
Pownal