MAINE GOP CALLS OUT FALSE CLAIM FROM PRO-WELFARE EXPANSION GROUP

PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release: October 17, 2017


MAINE GOP CALLS OUT FALSE CLAIM FROM PRO-WELFARE EXPANSION GROUP

AUGUSTA – Today, Maine Republican Party Chair Demi Kouzounas responded to a false claim by Mainers for Health Care that expanding Medicaid would save Maine taxpayers money by reducing emergency room visits. A top study in the New England Journal of Medicine shows the emergency room savings claim is just plain not true.

“This claim flies in the face of research showing Medicaid expansion does not cut down on costly emergency room visits paid for by hardworking Mainers. No question about it, we have to debate expanding taxpayer-funded healthcare (including for able-bodied adults without children under Question 2). Still, everyone should be honest. 

The forces trying to expand welfare in Maine are saying we would save money where the evidence clearly shows we would not. I encourage everyone to look at the research and ask, if Mainers for Health Care is not being straight with you on this, what else might they be misleading you about?”

BACKGROUND
In 2016, The New England Journal of Medicine published a study examining the effect of Oregon’s Medicaid expansion on emergency room use. As National Public Radio reported at the time, “The study of Medicaid patients in Oregon who got Medicaid in 2008 found their ER use stayed high two years after they gained the health insurance coverage — even as they also increased their visits to doctors’ offices.”

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