Mainers call on Trump and Collins to end shutdown and protect access to affordable health care

October 17, 2025

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Maine families share concerns about ACA premiums rising, Medicaid cuts, and rural hospitals closing.

As the government shutdown enters its third week, Mainers are growing increasingly worried about the future of their health care coverage. They are calling on Maine’s members of Congress to extend premium tax credits for people with marketplace health coverage and revise the law the Senate passed in July that will cut Medicaid and Medicare.

Under the current Republican budget, Mainers will see their premiums increase an average of nearly 24% (4% higher than the national average) on the ACA individual marketplace, which has about 71,000 enrollees in Maine. 

Morgana Warner-Evans (she/her), a resident of Bath, said she relies on the ACA premium tax credits to afford her health care and wants to see the credits extended. “Thanks to the ACA, I am able to get the prescriptions I need to stay healthy. I’m especially glad I can get free birth control to manage my PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome) and prevent unwanted pregnancy.”

Warner-Evans said the credits were especially helpful when she was in graduate school and could only work part-time for three years. “Luckily, this coincided with the enhanced ACA subsidies, allowing me to afford my premiums and reducing the amount of debt I had to take on. Now, I am able to work full-time, and can afford to pay a little more for my premiums. I want today’s students, parents, semi-retired people, and others with reduced hours to have the same security that I did.”

Parents like Raychel Ward (she/her), of Livermore Falls, are also worried about rising costs and the possibility of rural hospitals closing across the state. “We live in a rural part of Maine and are watching rural critical care access hospitals close left and right because they can’t afford to function anymore.”

The Republican budget could lead to the closure of several rural hospitals in Maine. If this happens, thousands of Mainers will be forced to drive hours to receive care—or worse, go without the care they need and either get sicker or in the worst case, die. 

At-risk rural hospitals in the state include Aroostook Medical Center in Presque Isle and Northern Light Maine Coast Hospital in Ellsworth, according to the organization Protect Our Care. The Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform identifies five rural hospitals at immediate risk of shutting down.

Melissa Dunn (they/them), of Lewiston, has already felt the impact of health centers closing in their community. Their primary care doctor recently left B Street Health Center after Community Clinical Services, the organization operating it, downsized its services. Dunn says dental and psychiatric services are no longer available.

Dunn says, “We’re in such a rural state and even being in Lewiston I sometimes have to travel for care, so I can’t imagine people in more rural areas trying to receive care. I just worry this will put people in a compromising situation where they might not be able to go to the hospital when they need care, even if it could save their life.”

Dunn adds that when people lose health care coverage or delay or forgo care, it often pushes them further into poverty.

Many of these hospitals and health centers rely on Medicaid funding to operate, but Republicans in Congress made the decision to brutally cut the programs that give many of us access to health care. Because of those cuts, more than 57,000 Mainers will likely lose their health insurance coverage. 

Ward and her family rely on hospitals and health centers in their area to care for their three children, each with complex medical issues. Her youngest child, Bryan, was born with hyperinsulinism, a condition that causes his body to produce more insulin than his available blood sugar can process. The result is dangerously low blood sugar levels that require ongoing treatment.

Ward says, “His medications are like $440 a month, which Medicaid covers for us, but without Medicaid, it would be virtually impossible to receive or access those medications. It’s very scary.” 

Kasey McBlais (she/her), a single mother from Buckfield, also relies on Medicaid to care for herself and her children. Her son’s medical needs can’t be accommodated by local child care providers, so McBlais has to work part-time to care for him. Her reduced income qualified her for MaineCare, the state’s Medicaid program. 

McBlais says, “Since obtaining MaineCare health insurance, I was able to go to therapy to navigate the challenges and aftermath of divorce. I was able to go on an antidepressant and an anti-anxiety medication, which otherwise would have been unaffordable.” 

Through MaineCare, her son also receives in-home support from a behavioral health professional and is enrolled in services at the Glickman Lauder Center for Excellence in Autism and Developmental Disorders. “All of this would not have been possible without our MaineCare health insurance,” McBlais says.

Ward and McBlais are calling on Maine’s members of Congress to fight for families like theirs by extending the tax credits that allow many people to buy insurance on the marketplace, restoring Medicaid funding, and making sure our rural hospitals have what they need to stay open. Ward says, “If we could take a minute, just a minute, on a federal level to evaluate our entire health care system and see what works and what doesn’t work and actually make the system work for Americans, that would be amazing.”

McBlais says, “There has to be a moment where the folks that we elect into power… look at us like we’re human beings and we’re not just mouths to feed or a number or a statistic. I would want them to look in [my son’s] eyes… and ask themselves, how can they make these decisions when there are real people, real lives at stake?”

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With more than 32,000 members, MPA is the largest community organization in Maine, and one of the largest in the country. We work together on issues that include but are not limited to housing, care, climate change and environmental justice, health care access, racial justice, and immigrant rights.

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Contact: Kate Gardner, [email protected]