During a televised debate in June, Shawn Moody faced a videotaped question from a voter: “Do you believe that health care is a human right?”
“No,” he said. “You earn it.”
Moody’s response is one of many indicators that his intended route to the Blaine House follows a path well worn by its current occupant, Paul LePage.
LePage has vetoed Medicaid expansion seven times during his two terms in office, often claiming to dispute its price tag. Like LePage, Moody appears to believe his own opinion outweighs the 59 percent of voters who approved last year’s referendum that would expand Medicaid to an additional 70,000 Mainers.
In an interview with the Maine Heritage Policy Center posted June 11, Moody said he is “in alignment” with LePage’s stance in regard to the program’s funding, more than 90 percent of which would come from the federal government, bringing hundreds of millions of dollars into the state each year. “The same legislators that are in favor of it, need to come up with a viable way to appropriate for it without robbing the rainy-day fund, without gimmicks, and without raising taxes,” he said.
But his opposition is actually more clear-cut than that. MHPC chief executive Matthew Gagnon asked Moody whether he would implement expansion if fully funded, referencing those for whom economic and ideological concerns would always produce a “straight no.”
“I’m in that camp,” Moody said. “We can’t let it happen.”
At the televised GOP debate on June 7, Moody said, “I did not support the Medicaid expansion and […] I would fight to repeal it.” He also attacked Maine’s citizen-initiated referendum system itself or, as he termed them, “unvetted, unconstitutional things.”
Maine Democratic Party chairman Phil Bartlett said that Moody’s rhetoric shows Mainers he “doesn’t have their best interests at heart on this issue.”
“As governor, Moody would defy the will of the voters and fight to repeal Medicaid Expansion,” said Bartlett in a recent press statement. “Shawn Moody wants state government to continue down the same dysfunctional path we’ve been on for nearly eight years with Governor LePage because he thinks it will win him more votes.”
Other comments Moody has made on the campaign trail indicate what experts see as a limited understanding of the policy behind the health care program. Appearing on the The Derek Volk Show in December, Moody tried to characterize Medicaid expansion, which would deliver health care to tens of thousands of the state’s uninsured, as a “government bailout for the insurance companies and for the hospitals.” James Myall, a policy analyst with the Maine Center for Economic Policy told Beacon that Moody’s comments displayed a fundamental misunderstanding of the system.
“Not only is it financially unsustainable for society to expect hospitals and other medical providers to treat tens of thousands of Mainers for free every year, it’s also inefficient,” Myall said. “Hospitals make up for this loss by increasing the prices they charge insurance companies, which pushes up the cost of insurance for the majority of Mainers who have private plans.”
Health care advocates and others are concerned that the Republican nominee’s rhetoric on health care mirrors that of his predecessor, LePage, who is currently being sued by Maine Equal Justice Partners for obstructing the law on expansion.
During a July 11 radio interview, LePage upped the ante, declared that he would rather go to jail than acquiesce to the results of the referendum or the bipartisan bill to fund expansion that he vetoed earlier this month. Moody hasn’t yet commented on that statement.
Moody official photo.
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