Gov.-elect Janet Mills, the first woman to be elected governor in Maine's 198-year history, celebrated Wednesday, but her her mind was already on the job, and what she's going to tackle on day 1.
"Health care is the No. 1 priority," Mills said, her voice sounding a bit hoarse after a late night. "We are going to work very hard on Medicaid expansion, No. 1. … And the opiate epidemic: we've got to tackle that now. No more waiting. We've lost thousands of lives in the last few years. When nearly 1,000 babies are born last year affected by drugs, we can't stop. We can't drag our feet any more."
The new Democratic trifecta in Maine will make that agenda much easier to accomplishment. There are some 70,000 people in Maine who are eligible for the Medicaid expansion voters approved back in 2017, a vote that current Gov. Paul LePage (R, of course) has been refusing to honor since. That might have a lot to do with Mills' election.