Gov. Paul LePage wasn't content to veto Medicaid expansion in Maine five times in the last legislative session. That just wasn't enough to demonstrate just how much he disdains the program, or more likely the people on it. No, for that he had to spend $53,000 on private lawyers in a
failed attempt to remove thousands of low-income young adults from the program. That's after his attorney general told him the case was hopeless.
The Republican governor went to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals after the federal government denied his request to end Medicaid coverage for about 6,000 19- and 20-year olds. He was forced to seek outside counsel after Attorney General Janet Mills, a Democrat, declined to represent the state.
Mills refused to represent the administration because the case had "little legal merit" and "wouldn't be a good use of time and money," she said in an interview this month. She even joined the federal government in fighting LePage's effort in court.
But she allowed the governor to hire outside counsel because of the earnestness of his position and because she said it's not her "aim to prevent the governor, as the chief executive, from pursuing public policy in initiatives."
Obamacare requires that states maintain Medicaid coverage for children and young adults until 2019, dooming LePage's efforts to end that coverage. LePage's policy initiative of stripping it away was ostensibly to save the state money. To that end, he spent $53,000 on a futile case so far. LePage has suggested that he'd try to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.