At least one program to help adolescents with substance use disorder is in jeopardy because of the state Senate’s failure Thursday to approve a supplemental budget by a two-thirds majority.
Republicans refused to back the $121 million supplemental budget without structural reforms to MaineCare. Because the budget failed to gain two-thirds support, MaineCare payments will be curtailed or delayed until June. If two-thirds of lawmakers had voted for it, payments would have only been paused for a short time.
Democratic lawmakers said Friday that they will move forward without Republican support, if necessary, to fund the MaineCare shortfall in this year’s budget and ensure that essential services are funded for the next two years.
The supplemental budget was needed to fill a $118 million shortfall in the MaineCare budget. MaineCare, the state’s name for the federal Medicaid program, provides health care for lower-income patients and is funded with state and federal money.
Among the areas of disagreement, Republicans sought reforms to MaineCare — including work, education or community service requirements — that Democrats opposed.
Windham-based Day One operates a residential treatment program for adolescents. The MaineCare-funded program is in danger of having to suspend operations and send 11 children home from two residential treatment centers in Cumberland County, said CEO Becky Humphrey, who didn’t want to identify the locations of the program for patient privacy reasons.
“The folks who receive that service are funded by MaineCare,” Humphrey said. “If we don’t get paid, we can’t sustain that service. We can’t pay staff, buy food, and do everything we need to do to provide that service.”
Residential treatment programs are in high demand, but there are few of them. Residential treatment can help patients with more severe cases of substance use disorder.
In addition to sending the adolescents home, 14 staff members would be at least temporarily laid off, Humphrey said.
It appears unlikely that State House Republicans and Democrats can agree to a compromise that would prevent the delay in MaineCare payments to health care providers like Day One. Some providers that have large cash reserves may be able to use those while waiting for payments to resume in June, but Humphrey said Day One is a small program that lacks large cash reserves.
Humphrey said Day One is trying to ramp up fundraising to avoid having to suspend the residential program, but that will be difficult on short notice.
“We’re going to do everything in our ability to prevent our services from being suspended,” Humphrey said.
Democratic Senate President Mattie Daughtry, in a floor speech Tuesday, cited the struggles that Day One and other health care providers face in an attempt to win more support for the supplemental budget. Day One is the “only youth residential program to support substance use disorder in the entire state,” she said.
Forcing them out of residential treatment would be “abandoning them. We would be turning our backs on them,” Daughtry said.
