Judge Will Decide Whether LePage Administration Must Implement Medicaid Expansion Law

A superior court judge could soon determine whether the LePage administration can continue delaying implementation of a law designed to provide health coverage for roughly 70,000 low-income Mainers.

Judge Michaela Murphy heard arguments Thursday in a lawsuit brought by five would-be recipients of Medicaid expansion and the anti-poverty group that helped convince voters to approve the law last year. Murphy will have to decide if she can force the LePage administration to setup Medicaid expansion when the Legislature has been unable to fund it.

The hour-long arguments in Cumberland County Superior Court led to a key question: can the judicial branch compel the executive branch to setup the expansion of Medicaid when a political stalemate in the legislative branch is effectively blocking a law that voters decisively ratified last year?

Attorney Jamie Kilbreth, who is representing Maine Equal Justice Partners and five people who could receive coverage if Medicaid is expanded, thinks that it can.

Read more: http://mainepublic.org/post/judge-will-decide-whether-lepage-administration-must-implement-medicaid-expansion-law