Letters to the Editor Courageous leadership

Courageous leadership
To the Editor;
    I was pleased to read the recent letter of Rep. Paul Davis reporting final payment of the state’s hospital debt.

I commend him, his colleagues, and Governor LePage for finally getting these bills paid.
    Maine’s hospital debt stood at about $80 million the year before Governor Baldacci took office. After Baldacci and the Democrat-controlled legislature expanded MaineCare, Maine’s Medicaid program, the debt skyrocketed to almost $400 million in 2006, when I ran for the state senate.
    That year, Baldacci was running for re-election and was taking a terrible beating over the debt. To salvage his campaign, he cut a deal with the hospitals to pay them off. However, two years after his re-election, the debt hit a record $550 million.
    When Governor LePage took office and Republicans took control of the legislature for the first time in 40 years, they reformed the MaineCare payment system so that hospitals got paid on time. Then they made a $250 million payment on the old debt.
    This year, LePage, with the support of Republicans like Paul Davis, paid the half-billion dollar balance in full over the strenuous objections of Democratic legislative leadership.
    The Democrats are even proposing to expand the very program that created this debt in the first place.
    With the leadership of Governor LePage and Republican legislators like Rep. Paul Davis, Rep. Pete Johnson, and Senator Doug Thomas, all representing Piscataquis County, the hospitals are being paid in full and Maine is better off.
    Thank you, Paul, Pete, and Doug, for your courage and leadership.
Douglas M. Smith
Former State Senator