Re: “Ballot wording on Medicaid is deficient” (Page A6, Aug. 30):

This letter to the editor is misleading and prejudicial, and the author (Hubert Padgett) doesn’t state his real beliefs about the proposed expansion of Medicaid in Maine. But his language is revealing. He suggests that Medicaid is not health insurance (also known as health coverage), which is an insinuation that it is another form of welfare, a denigration of people who need support with real medical problems beyond their ability to address alone.

He identifies the intended beneficiaries as “able-bodied adults,” another insinuation, which has been used to mean that one should be able to take care of oneself without public support, regardless of what real health threats life may have dealt.

I find this attack on people who have real and unmet health care needs, thinly veiled as a suggested language revision on the ballot issue, to be dishonest and deceitful. I hope Portland Press Herald readers can see this letter for what it is.

Judith Kline

South Portland