SANFORD — State Rep. Anne-Marie Mastraccio, D- Sanford, said a bill she has sponsored would help reduce Maine’s shortage of health care professionals and help reduce student debt for health care workers who agree to stay in Maine or return to the state.

L.D. 872 would create a program that would help repay education debt of a number of health care professionals who agree to live and work in the state for a minimum of five years. Under Mastraccio’s bill, the program is contingent on funding from the renewal of the contract for the operations of the state’s wholesale liquor business.

Mastraccio said her bill is one of several making its way through the Legislative process — another would use a state bond issue to help pay student debt.

The idea for the bill, she said, came to her while thinking of one of her constituents, Treza White, after learning last fall that the nursing student had made the honor role at her college, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Science in Boston. Mastraccio said she told White she hoped she’d return to Maine to carry out her nursing career.

White at the time told her she’d like to return to Maine, but knew she would be able to earn more in other states, and so would be in a better position to pay down her student debt.

White will graduate in a couple of months.

“This sort of bill would help immensely,” said White in an email on Thursday. White had applied to a nursing school in Maine but wasn’t accepted, and there were waiting lists for other Maine nursing programs. She said she was encouraged by a family friend to apply to the Boston program, and was accepted.

“Due to the high cost of education, living, and the high demand of the program (along with the school’s strong feeling against students working) I will leave with over $150,000 in federal and private debt,” said White. She said some of the debt can be attributed to prior associate’s degrees she’d earned, but most was a result of her nursing studies.

Under the program envisioned by Mastraccio, the Finance Authority of Maine  would pay 20 percent of the education debt or $25,000, whichever is less, for each year of participation in the program, up to a total of $125,000, for a health care professional who is not employed in a federally designated health professional shortage area. It would pay 20 percent of the education debt or $30,000, whichever is less, for each year of participation in the program, up to a total of $150,000, for a health care professional who is employed in a federally designated health professional shortage area.

According to an August 2017 Portland Press Herald report, the Maine Department of Labor anticipates a need for at least 3,700 more workers in ambulatory health care services, 2,300 more in hospitals and 1,900 more in nursing and residential care facilities over the 10-year period ending in 2024.

Mastraccio pointed out her bill would be funded through proceeds from the liquor contract, due for renewal in two years — she pointed out that former Gov. Paul LePage had used funds from the liquor contract to repay Maine’s hospital debt.

The bill would include, nurses, social workers and a number of other health care professionals and is also intended to include physicians and dentists currently covered under a different program — to bring them all together under one program.

The health care shortage will be “everywhere” in Maine, Mastraccio said.

She said she hasn’t estimated yet what the program would cost.

“We need to find a way to help pay this educational debt,” Mastraccio said.

The Finance Authority of Maine would oversee the program and write the rules.

The bill has been referred to the Joint Standing Committee on Innovation, Development, Economic Advancement and Business. So far, no public hearings or work sessions have been scheduled.

Among the bill sponsors is Rep. Ryan Fecteau, D-Biddeford.

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 780-9016 or twells@journaltribune.com.

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