AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine’s high court ruled on Thursday that Gov. Paul LePage’s administration must follow an earlier court order to submit a Medicaid expansion plan to the federal government, even as the justices sent significant constitutional questions about implementation back to a lower court.
The 6-1 ruling from the Maine Supreme Judicial Court is procedural, but it is nonetheless a boon to advocates’ court fight to expand Medicaid eligibility to an estimated 70,000 Mainers. Still, the issue will assuredly continue to wend its way through the state’s legal system for weeks.
Thursday’s ruling leaves key questions unresolved but may continue the slow march that Medicaid expansion has faced in Maine since before it passed in a 2017 referendum. The Republican governor vetoed expansion bills five times before then. Last month, House Republicans sustained a veto of the Legislature’s start-up funding plan.
To read the rest of “Maine’s top court backs ruling that LePage must send Medicaid expansion plan to feds,” an article by contributing Bangor Daily News staff writer Michael Shepherd, please follow this link to the BDN online.
