Perhaps because I had more time than usual in which to review the New Year’s Day paper, I want to communicate some inconsistencies that trouble me:

• In the discussions concerning the vote for and the possible failure of implementation of Medicaid expansion (Our View, Page A4), there is the overemphasis of concerns about cost and politics. That conversation is the easiest, least important, and the one most often stated. What counts is that the people of Maine voted for it. We expect our government to find a way to implement it and that some adults (and children), who work, are ill and untreated because of financial defects in our system.

We citizens of Maine, who approved implementation, are not children, and it is offensive when we are treated as such by Gov. LePage and the Legislature. Most of us understood, at the time of voting, that a small tax increase may be needed. We advise that politicians do their jobs and obey the will of the people.

• After working for 40 years as a primary care provider, I find it difficult to understand why a home visit physician could logically complain about a required face-to-face medical evaluation prior to prescribing cannabis (marijuana) to a patient in the process of treating a disease (“Medical providers challenge state rule on pot visits,” Page A1). It is improper to lower standards of care in the interests of cost reduction. In my view, telemedicine cannot be a substitute for the required evaluation.

• It is illogical to me that the Portland Press Herald would advocate for legalizing recreational marijuana in its editorials and give prominent placement in its news pages to the concerns of physicians who want to lower the standards for its medical use when we know that the medicine’s use is illegal nationally.

David Scotton, M.D.

Cape Elizabeth

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