AUGUSTA, Maine - A bill to expand access to a drug-overdose treatment is awaiting action by Gov. Paul LePage.

The governor has vetoed other bills to expand access to naloxone without a prescription. LePage wants to limit naloxone access to people 21 years of age and older, but Legislative Document 1892, which would remove the age restriction entirely, has passed both houses of the Legislature with veto-proof margins.

According to Lindsay LaSalle, a senior staff attorney with the Drug Policy Alliance, opioid use nationally is affecting growing numbers of younger people, and expanding access to naloxone will save lives.

"It should be in the hands of youths, who may be using experimentally or problematically," she said, "because we know that the sooner that you intervene with problematic drug use, the better chances are of recovery."

There were 418 overdose deaths in Maine last year, an 11 percent increase over 2016. LePage has said easing access to naloxone would enable drug abusers.

However, LaSalle said the evidence shows clearly that naloxone doesn't encourage drug use. She pointed out that using it to counteract an opioid overdose immediately puts the person who took the drug into opioid withdrawal.

"It's not something that any drug user wants to experience," she said. "It's a method of last resort, and it should be a method of first resort for policymakers and elected officials who really want to curb overdose deaths."

The U.S. Surgeon General has urged drug users and their families to keep naloxone on hand. LaSalle said overdoses of fentanyl, an artificial opioid often mixed with heroine, happen so quickly that waiting for first responders to arrive with naloxone often takes too long. She said those at risk of overdose and their families need to be prepared.

"That really is the only thing that is going to allow us to immediately prevent the overdose deaths," she said, "so that then we can begin to usher in other interventions that hopefully can help people scale back on their problematic use."

LaSalle said almost every other state allows people to obtain naloxone without a prescription.

The text of LD 1892 is online at mainelegislature.org.


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Advocates for affordable health care are speaking out to remind people what is at stake if the Affordable Care Act is repealed in the wake of recent statements by former President Donald Trump.

Mr. Trump, who leads the polls for the 2024 Republican nomination, has recently said he is looking at alternatives to the Affordable Care Act, and criticized the GOP lawmakers who voted against his attempts to end the program in 2017.

Laura Packard, a Stage 4 cancer survivor, noted before the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies were allowed to deny coverage to people like her with pre-existing conditions.

"While I was on the couch, trying to survive, that's when Republicans in the U.S. House voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act that was keeping me alive," Packard recounted. "Then, they held a party to celebrate. We can't go back to that."

The Affordable Care Act created health exchanges -- like Covered California -- offering subsidized health insurance to millions of people. And it funded an expansion of MediCal, benefiting 5 million low-income Californians in the first six years after the law's passage.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who helped write the health care law, said the Affordable Care Act forces health insurance companies to cover basic services like maternity care, mental health services, cancer screenings and contraception. The idea of getting rid of the law has been largely unpopular, and Wyden knows why.

"It would mean higher premiums for families and health insurance," Wyden pointed out. "And it would also threaten Medicaid nursing home benefits, because Medicaid is paying much of the nursing home bill for this country."

The law also allows adult children to stay on their parents' health plans until age 26 and bans lifetime caps on coverage.


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Nurses who care for patients in their homes in the Willamette Valley are pushing to get their union contract negotiations across the finish line.

Home health and hospice care workers at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart in the Eugene area have been in a long struggle to complete negotiations. The nurses' contract expired in April.

Jo Turner, a hospice visiting nurse who has been leading negotiations for the Oregon Nurses Association, said they are holding an informational picket today in Eugene.

"The plan is to get the public involved," Turner explained. "Get them to understand the lack of respect that PeaceHealth is demonstrating to their home care nurses."

The home care nurses are looking to maintain pay parity with nurses in hospitals. Turner argued continuity of care between hospital and home is important. PeaceHealth did not respond to a request for comment.

PeaceHealth is closing the only hospital in Eugene at the end of the year. Turner noted there is concern it will mean more patients will need care at home.

"There's all these patients that are being discharged quickly and with no safety net," Turner pointed out. "They're just expecting Sacred Heart hospice and Sacred Heart home care to take these patients that are extremely heavy burdens that the rest of the home care companies will not take."

Turner added PeaceHealth cannot take the same approach to negotiations in Eugene as it does in other cities.

"You have to meet your community where it's at and you have to provide for your community, not like you would provide for Vancouver or Bellingham," Turner stressed. "We are our own special community, and who better to serve it than your nurses that live in the community?"

Starting Friday, North Carolinians will have greater access to health care as the long-awaited Medicaid expansion is launched.

Medicaid will provide coverage to individuals ages 19 to 64 with higher incomes, allowing eligibility for those earning up to 138% of the federal poverty rate.

Kody Kinsley, North Carolina's Secretary of Health and Human Services, said this expansion will bring essential care to thousands, improving their health and overall well-being.

"That's 600,000 people who will be able to have their medications covered by insurance and that's 600,000 people who -- when they face an emergency event and they have to go to the hospital -- will have the peace of mind to know that they're not going to get stuck with a medical bill that they can't afford," Kinsley said.

In addition to the increased income threshold, the Family Planning Medicaid program will offer reproductive health care at no cost to people with incomes up to 195% of the Federal Poverty Level. This means even a single person earning up to $2,400 per month will have access to essential care.

Kinsley added individuals already receiving family planning benefits and meeting the requirements for full Medicaid will be automatically enrolled on Friday. They should expect to receive notification via mail. He said this expansion not only ensures health care for many throughout the state but also supports hospitals and empowers working families to thrive in the workforce.

"Medicaid expansion helps working families; 80% of the individuals that will benefit from expansion are in working families. It will increase access to mental-health and substance-use treatment and will help build a healthier workforce," he explained.

To support the expansion's non-federal share cost, more than 100 hospitals will also receive about $3 billion through the Healthcare Access and Stabilization Program. North Carolina is now the 40th state to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.


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