This week, the Maine Ethics Commission fined Paul LePage’s campaign $3,000 after it missed a finance report filing deadline, allegedly because the campaign manager fell asleep. The incident hearkens back to the days when LePage was governor and his administration frequently missed deadlines and Maine people suffered as a result. When LePage was in the Blaine House, his administration missed:
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A deadline to file a plan for expanding Medicaid, playing a role in more than 90,000 Maine people being stuck without health care until after LePage left office
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A deadline to rehire public health nurses, leading to a series of unresolved referrals for Maine patients
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A deadline to distribute emergency funds for a new detox center to help fight the state’s opioid crisis
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A deadline to get Medicaid reimbursements for patients at Maine’s psychiatric facilities
Another example of deadline dysfunction during the LePage era was when he missed a deadline to veto laws he actively opposed, yet another case of his inability to master even the most routine functions of state government.
All told, the LePage administration’s refusal to comply with deadlines or reapply for funding cost the state nearly $2 billion in federal funds which could have been used to fund health care, child care, and other services for Maine people. Recently, LePage suggested that if re-elected, he would run this same playbook once again, saying his new administration would look “an awful lot like what we did in the first administration.”