Dear Editor:

We are writing to voice our strong support for Holly Stover to represent House District 89 (Boothbay, Boothbay Harbor, Edgecomb, part of South Bristol, Southport and Westport Island) in the Maine legislature. Health care is one of the defining issues of our time. For too long, we as a state and a nation have approached it in a piecemeal and inadequate fashion, resulting in many of our fellow citizens suffering needlessly and dying prematurely. It is past time that we urgently address this major shortcoming in our social safety net.

The Affordable Care Act has taken some important steps in that direction, but cannot do all it was meant to do without the participation of states. Maine, under our current representation in Augusta, has refused to participate fully in the Affordable Care Act’s vision of covering every citizen by repeatedly turning down the funds available to us to expand our Medicaid program and cover approximately 70,000 Maine people currently without any form of insurance. When Maine voters made it clear that they want Medicaid expanded by passing it by referendum, our current representation ignored that, and continued to deny the funding and otherwise delay.

The reasons given for this — usually some form of “we can’t afford it” — are easily overcome with a quick review of the facts. Ninety percent of the funding comes from the federal government. The remaining 10 percent that Maine must provide to trigger this funding, is currently sitting in state government accounts.

We can afford to do this, and what’s more, we can’t afford not to. At this point, everyone knows that it is cheaper to cover everyone than it is to allow people to become catastrophically ill and treat them in an emergency setting. It is also the right thing to do. And it would go a long ways towards addressing another major issue facing Maine: the opioid epidemic.

Holly Stover supports the specific policy of Maine Medicaid expansion, and the general value of health care coverage for everyone, and will cast votes to get us closer to that reality. She has our vote on Nov. 6 and we hope she has yours.

Dr. Steve Cook, Boothbay

Dr. Peg Helming, Southport

Dr. Edward Kitfield, Westport Island

Lydia Kitfield, RN, Westport Island