Maine kids face long wait for specialized care after clinic closes in Augusta
May 27—Sara Wing said her 11-year-old daughter needs to see a specialist who can make a diagnosis because she suspects her daughter has a developmental disability. Such a diagnosis would unlock Medicaid services and likely result in her daughter getting extra help at school.
But Wing said when the Edmund Ervin Pediatric Center at MaineGeneral Health in Augusta closed on May 16 — a move that blindsided her — it left her with no access to someone who can make that diagnosis. Primary care doctors often don't have the necessary specialized expertise and rely instead on places like the Ervin Center.
"It's devastating. I don't know what we are going to do," said Wing, who lives in Waterville. Everywhere she turns to try to seek a diagnosis for 11-year-old Kenzie, Wing finds yearslong waiting lists. Wing said Kenzie has anxiety and social issues and needs extra help.
Wing said she believes her children — Kenzie and 8-year-old Amy — missed out on learning crucial social skills during the pandemic, with school shut down or on a curtailed schedule.
"There's a whole group of kids behind on their social skills, who have mental health issues, and now one of the only places where you can get a diagnosis closed," Wing said
MaineGeneral announced on May 5 that it was closing the Ervin Center because of low reimbursement rates from MaineCare, the state's name for Medicaid. Also, insurance denials and other increased costs made some of the center's programs financially unsustainable, hospital officials said.
While most of the Ervin Center's services were folded into other parts of MaineGeneral Health, certain psychological services were closed, including diagnostics and a Pediatric Rapid Evaluation Program serving foster children.
Hospital officials said they were losing $1 million per year on the programs.
Nancy Cronin, executive director of the Maine Developmental Disabilities Council, is leading an effort to allocate $2.5 million in Medicaid funding over the next two years to stand up a program or persuade MaineGeneral to agree to a fully-funded bridge program. Cronin said in the long term, she envisions a mobile unit that would travel all over the state to get children properly diagnosed.
The solutions are in the early discussion phase, and could include legislation or a reallocation of current resources by the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.
DHHS provided a written statement saying it is exploring options.
"The department is deeply committed to ensuring that children with developmental disabilities have access to the care and services they need," it said. " While we cannot speak to specific funding proposals at this time, our focus remains on supporting families and maintaining access to critical services. We are actively reviewing how best to address gaps in services within existing resources and are exploring potential options to support children and families affected by this transition."
Cronin said the loss of the Ervin Center is creating a gap of about 650 such diagnoses per year, and will result in a proliferation of yearslong waitlists. Cronin said there's no precise accounting of the demand, but thousands of children need to be diagnosed every year, and currently, waitlists are expanding.
"Without a diagnosis, these kids can't qualify for Medicaid services," Cronin said. Many students who would qualify for special education or other school services will not be able to gain eligibility for those programs.
And Cronin said an official diagnosis is needed for mental health and developmental services that extend past the school day.
Gay Ann McDonald, executive director of the Maine Administrators of Services for Children with Disabilities, said that evaluations used for a school-based Individualized Education Program are not medical diagnoses.
McDonald said in a written statement that "educational evaluations ordered by the IEP team are not intended to serve as a diagnostic medical tool."
Medical evaluations outside of the school setting "are funded through separate mechanisms and often assess much broader areas of need, such as in-home support, community-based therapy or medical services and are beyond the educational needs of a child."
Carrie Woodcock, executive director of the Maine Parent Federation advocacy group, said that with the added bottlenecks created by the Ervin Center closing, some services will be "completely inaccessible."
"This is going to leave families with no place to go," Woodcock said.
Cronin has built a coalition of 15 nonprofits advocating to reopen some services.
Joy McKenna, spokeswoman for MaineGeneral, said that hospital officials appreciate efforts to revive the program.
"However, we are wary of a temporary fix that will not solve the program's critical structural issues," McKenna said. "These services need adequate, sustainable funding to meet the needs of children and families."
Wing, the Waterville mother, said it took a lot of effort and "jumping through a lot of hoops" to get Medicaid developmental services for her younger daughter. As a result, Amy can use noise-canceling headphones and get extra help at school, and she has also learned how to cope with anxiety and other social skills.
While Amy is getting the help she needs now, Wing said she's worried her daughter's future needs may not be addressed with the cutbacks.
"A lot of people don't realize that Edmund Ervin was the only place to get some of these services," Wing said. "It teaches them coping skills and how to be in life, and that's what my kids need, and what many kids need."
Copy the Story Link
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Business Insider
27 minutes ago
- Business Insider
What A-list economists are saying about Trump's tax bill as Musk rebels against it
Elon Musk has departed his role as a "special government employee" in Trump's White House — and he's using his time outside the administration to hammer the GOP spending bill that's a cornerstone of the president's agenda. "This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination," Musk wrote on X earlier this week. Trump responded by saying Musk's criticism of the legislation is "disappointing." President Trump's tax bill will likely face a vote in the Senate in the coming weeks after passing the House in May. It would reduce the tax rates of lower-income workers, particularly those earning less than $107,200, and eliminate taxes on tips, social security, and overtime. The bill would also cut spending on social programs like Medicaid and SNAP benefits, which provide food assistance to low-income Americans. Like Musk, investors and economists are seemingly concerned that the bill will cause the national debt to balloon and further widen the US budget deficit. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said this week that it would grow the deficit by $2.4 trillion over the next decade . Trump and his allies have pushed back, arguing that higher economic growth from lower taxes would help boost government revenue. Here's what top economists are saying about the bill. Phillip L. Swagel, director of the Congressional Budget Office Despite the lower tax rates for low earners, Swagel said in a May 20 letter that the bill would negatively impact poorer Americans. "CBO estimates that household resources would decrease by an amount equal to about 2 percent of income in the lowest decile (tenth) of the income distribution in 2027 and 4 percent in 2033, mainly as a result of losses of in-kind transfers, such as Medicaid and SNAP," he wrote. "By contrast, resources would increase by an amount equal to 4 percent for households in the highest decile in 2027 and 2 percent in 2033, mainly because of reductions in the taxes they owe." William McBride, chief economist at the Tax Foundation McBride, along with several colleagues at the non-partisan Tax Foundation think tank, said in a May 23 report that while the bill would support economic growth, it wouldn't be enough to offset the revenue loss from tax cuts. "Our preliminary analysis finds the tax provisions included in the House-passed bill would increase long-run GDP by 0.8 percent," the report said. "The bill's tax and spending changes would increase the 10-year budget deficit by $2.6 trillion from 2025 through 2034 on a conventional basis before added interest costs. On a dynamic basis, accounting for economic growth, the deficit would increase by $1.7 trillion over ten years before interest costs." It continued: "The bill's tax provisions alone would reduce federal tax revenue by $4.1 trillion from 2025 through 2034 on a conventional basis before added interest costs. On a dynamic basis, accounting for economic growth, the revenue reduction would fall by nearly 22 percent to $3.2 trillion over 10 years before added interest costs." 6 Nobel Laureates Six Nobel Prize-winning economists — including Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, Peter Diamond, Paul Krugman, Oliver Hart, and Joseph Stiglitz — said in a June 2 letter that the bill would worsen wealth inequality in the US. "The combination of cuts to key safety net programs like Medicaid and SNAP and tax cuts disproportionately benefiting higher-income households means that the House budget constitutes an extremely large upward redistribution of income. Given how much this bill adds to the U.S. debt, it is shocking that it still imposes absolute losses on the bottom 40% of U.S households," the letter said. "The House bill addresses none of the nation's key economic challenges usefully and exacerbates many of them," it added. Ken Rogoff, professor of economics at Harvard University Rogoff, former chief economist at the IMF, cast doubt on the notion that the bill would boost growth in a piece for Project Syndicate this week. "Trump and his acolytes argue that his "big, beautiful bill" will supercharge economic growth, generating enough revenue to make up for sweeping tax cuts. But history offers little support for such claims," he wrote. "While both Democratic-led spending sprees and Republican-backed tax cuts have fueled the growth of US debt over the past two decades, tax reductions have accounted for the lion's share of the increase. Moreover, the notion that tax cuts pay for themselves was already discredited in the 1980s, when President Ronald Reagan's tax cuts led to soaring deficits rather than self-sustaining growth." He added: "Will America's rising debt ultimately trigger a full-blown crisis? Perhaps, but a continued upward drift in long-term interest rates is more likely." Desmond Lachman, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute Lachman, a former IMF official who currently works for a conservative-leaning think tank, said in a June 4 post that rising bond yields, a declining dollar, and appreciating gold prices could be harbingers of an economic crisis brought on by Trump-driven policy volatility. Trump's tax bill is adding to investors' fears due to its inflationary implications. But one of its clauses undermines confidence in the reliability of the returns on Treasurys, he said. "That bill includes a clause that has to be sending shivers down foreign investors' spines. According to Section 899, the US Treasury can impose additional taxes of up to 20 percent on income earned by foreign entities from countries that enact taxes deemed 'unfair' to US interests."
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
GOP tax and spending bill dings states that offer health care to some immigrants here legally
Demonstrators gather for a protest organized by the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee calling for the continuation of MinnesotaCare for undocumented adults outside of the Governor's Reception Room at the Minnesota State Capitol Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer) The Republican budget bill the U.S. House approved last month includes a surprise for the 40 states that have expanded Medicaid: penalties for providing health care to some immigrants who are here legally. Along with punishing the 14 states that use their own funds to cover immigrants who are here illegally, analysts say last-minute changes to the bill would make it all but impossible for states to continue helping some immigrants who are in the country legally, on humanitarian parole. Under the bill, the federal government would slash funding to states that have expanded Medicaid and provide coverage to immigrants who are on humanitarian parole — immigrants who have received permission to temporarily enter the United States due to an emergency or urgent humanitarian reason. The federal government pays 90% of the cost of covering adults without children who are eligible under Medicaid expansion, but the bill would cut that to 80% for those states, doubling the state portion from 10% to 20%. That's the same penalty the bill proposes for states that use their own money to help immigrants who are here illegally. Ironically, states such as Florida that have extended Medicaid coverage to immigrants who are here on humanitarian parole but have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act would not be harmed by the bill, said Leonardo Cuello, a Medicaid law and policy expert and research professor at the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy. It is 'wildly nonsensical and unfair' to penalize expansion states for covering a population that some non-expansion states, such as Florida, also cover, Cuello said. 'It would appear that the purpose is more to punish expansion states than address any genuine concern with immigrant coverage.' Republican tax bill could slash billions for Oregon Health Plan, state officials say West Virginia is one of the states where lawmakers are nervously watching U.S. Senate discussions on the proposed penalty. Republican state Rep. Matt Rohrbach, a deputy House speaker, said West Virginia legislators tabled a proposal that would have ended Medicaid expansion if the federal government reduced its share of the funding, because the state's congressional representatives assured them it wasn't going to happen. Now the future is murkier. Cuello called the proposed penalty 'basically a gun to the head of the states.' 'Congress is framing it as a choice, but the state is being coerced and really has no choice,' he said. There are about 1.3 million people in the United States on humanitarian parole, from Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Ukraine and Venezuela as well as some Central American children who have rejoined family here. The Trump administration is trying to end parole from some of those countries. A Supreme Court decision May 30 allows the administration to end humanitarian parole for about 500,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Not many of those parolees qualify for Medicaid, which requires a waiting period or special status, but the 40 states with expanded Medicaid could be penalized if immigrants qualify for the program, said Tanya Broder, senior counsel for health and economic justice policy at the National Immigration Law Center. It would appear that the purpose is more to punish expansion states than address any genuine concern with immigrant coverage. – Leonardo Cuello, Georgetown University research professor Meanwhile, an increasing number of states and the District of Columbia already are considering scaling back Medicaid coverage for immigrants because of the costs. The federal budget bill, named the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is now being considered by the Senate, where changes are likely. The fact that so many states could be affected by the last-minute change could mean more scrutiny in that chamber, said Andrea Kovach, senior attorney for health care justice at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law in Chicago. By her count, at least 38 states and the District of Columbia would be affected by the new restrictions, since they accepted some options now offered by Medicaid to cover at least some humanitarian parolees without a five-year waiting period. 'They're all going to be penalized because they added in parolees,' Kovach said. 'So that's 38 times two senators who are going to be very interested in this provision to make sure their state doesn't get their reimbursement knocked down.' The change to exclude people with humanitarian parole was included in a May 21 amendment by U.S. Rep. Jodey Arrington, a Texas Republican who chairs the House budget committee. Arrington's office did not reply to a request for comment, though he has stressed the importance of withholding Medicaid from immigrants who are here illegally. '[Democrats] want to protect health care and welfare at any cost for illegal immigrants at the expense of hardworking taxpayers,' Arrington said in a May 22 floor speech urging passage of the bill. 'But by the results of this last election, it's abundantly clear: The people see through this too and they have totally rejected the Democrats' radical agenda.' Some states already are considering cutting Medicaid coverage for immigrants, though Democratic lawmakers and advocates are pushing back. Washington, D.C., Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser has proposed phasing out a program that provides Medicaid coverage to adults regardless of their immigration status, a move she says would save the District of Columbia $457 million. Minnesota advocates protested a state budget deal reached last month with Democratic Gov. Tim Walz to phase out health care coverage for adults who are here illegally, a condition Republican lawmakers insisted on to avoid a shutdown. Similarly, Illinois advocates are protesting new state rules that will end a program that has provided Medicaid coverage to immigrants aged 42-64 regardless of their legal status. The program cost $1.6 billion over three years, according to a state audit. The state will continue a separate program that provides coverage for older adults. 'Our position is that decision-makers in Illinois shouldn't be doing Trump's work for him,' said Kovach, of the Shriver Center on Poverty Law. 'Let's preserve health coverage for immigrants and stand up for Illinois immigrant residents who have been paying taxes into this state for years and need this coverage.' Illinois state Sen. Graciela Guzmán, a Democrat whose parents are refugees from El Salvador, said many of her constituents in Chicago may be forced to cancel chemotherapy or lifesaving surgery because of the changes. 'It was a state budget, but I think the federal reconciliation bill really set the tone for it,' Guzmán said. 'In a tough fiscal environment, it was really hard to set up a defense for this program.' Oregon Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek is among the governors holding firm, saying that letting immigrants stay uninsured imposes costs on local hospitals and ends up raising prices for everyone. 'The costs will go somewhere. When everyone is insured it is much more helpful to keep costs down and reasonable for everyone. That's why we've taken this approach to give care to everyone,' Kotek said at a news conference last month. Medicaid does pay for emergency care for low-income patients, regardless of their immigration status, and that would not change under the federal budget bill. Franny White, a spokesperson for the Oregon Health Authority, said her state's Medicaid program covers about 105,000 immigrants, some of whom are here illegally. She said the policy, established by a 2021 state law, can save money in the long run. 'Uninsured people are less likely to receive preventive care due to cost and often wait until a condition worsens to the point that it requires more advanced, expensive care at an emergency department or hospital,' she said. California was among the first states, along with Oregon, to offer health insurance to immigrants of all ages regardless of their legal status. But it now is considering cutting back, looking to save $5 billion as it seeks to close a $12 billion budget deficit. In May, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed freezing enrollment of immigrant adults who are here illegally, and charging them premiums to save money. 'It's possible that other states will decide to cut back these services because of budgetary concerns,' said Drishti Pillai, director of immigrant health policy at KFF, a health policy research organization. If the federal budget bill passes with the immigrant health care provision intact, states would have more than two years to adjust, since the changes would not take effect until October 2027. 'We have time to really understand what the landscape looks like and really create a legal argument to make sure folks are able to maintain their health care coverage,' said Enddy Almonord, director for Healthy Illinois, an advocacy group supporting universal health care coverage. Stateline, like the Capital Chronicle, is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@
an hour ago
Trump says he's 'very disappointed' in Elon Musk. Musk strikes back in real time.
President Donald Trump hit back on Elon Musk following Musk's rampage against his domestic megabill, saying on Thursday he's "very disappointed" in the Tesla billionaire. "Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will anymore," Trump said. Musk responded to the comments in real time on X, where he continued to swipe at the legislation and at Trump directly. "Where is this guy today??" Musk wrote as he reupped another user's compilation of past Trump tweets criticizing high deficits, unbalanced budgets and more. At one point, Musk responded to a user: "Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate." The president was asked about Musk's relentless criticisms of the tax and immigration bill while taking reporter questions alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Oval Office. "He hasn't said anything about me that's bad. I'd rather have him criticize me than the bill, because the bill is incredible," Trump said of Musk. The "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" passed the House last month by a single vote. The measure would extend Trump's 2017 tax cuts and boost spending for the military and border security, while making some cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and other assistance programs. It now faces headwinds in the Senate, specifically among a small group of Republican fiscal hawks. Musk has said the the legislation, estimated by the nonpartisan budget office to add $3 trillion to the deficit over the next decade, would undermine the Department of Government Efficiency's goal to reduce government spending and trim the national debt. Trump contended on Thursday that Musk, the CEO of Tesla, was really "upset" because the legislation would remove tax credits for electric vehicles. "But I'm very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here, better than you people," Trump said. "He knew everything about it. He had no problem with it. All of a sudden, he had a problem." Musk pushed back on X and suggested Trump was not telling the truth. "False, this bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!" he wrote. In another post, Musk wrote: "Whatever." "Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill," the post read. "In the entire history of civilization, there has never been legislation that both big and beautiful," Musk added. "Everyone knows this! Either you get a big and ugly bill or a slim and beautiful bill. Slim and beautiful is the way."
