{"id":812437,"date":"2026-08-13T16:28:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T16:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/812437\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T16:28:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T16:28:22","slug":"birthing-center-closure-a-slap-in-the-face-to-elected-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/812437\/","title":{"rendered":"Birthing center closure a slap in the face to elected leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"

Douglas Rooks has been a Maine editor and columnist for 41 years. His biography of Gov. Ken Curtis, \u201cTransformational,\u201d is now available.\u00a0He welcomes comment at\u00a0[email\u00a0protected]<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Probably not one in a thousand Mainers could identify the CEO of MaineHealth, which has more than 22,000 employees and, as a Forbes magazine profile puts it, \u201cis the largest health system in northern New England\u201d providing\u00a0 care for \u201c1.1 million residents in Maine and New Hampshire.\u201d It owns nine hospitals \u2014 10 starting in October, when it takes over York Hospital<\/a>, a rare independent holdout.<\/p>\n

Yet Dr. Andrew Mueller, that CEO, is more powerful \u2014 or at least has more control over healthcare \u2014 than both the governor of Maine and a nominee to succeed her.<\/p>\n

For months, a public campaign has been waged over proposed elimination of the birthing unit at Lincoln Hospital\u2019s Miles Campus in Damariscotta. A dozen birthing centers have closed at Maine hospitals in a decade, most recently in Houlton<\/a>, leaving a large geographical gap in where families can get pre- and post-natal care.<\/p>\n

Women in the Miles community made a stand, and didn\u2019t just oppose closure. They proposed a plausible plan where MaineHealth could use nurse midwives and other qualified staff instead of relying exclusively on obstetricians, who\u2019ve been in short supply for decades. While there are fewer births at Miles than 20 years ago, there are many more than five years ago<\/a>, when community efforts to rebuild the program began.<\/p>\n

Advocates also asked that a final decision be delayed \u2014 a suggestion taken up by candidate Hannah Pingree and then Gov. Janet Mills. <\/p>\n

Instead, the MaineHealth board slammed the door and closed the unit<\/a> \u2014 although it pledged, for what it\u2019s worth, no more closings for two years. This could be rightly viewed as a slap in the face to Maine\u2019s elected leaders, who have approved hundreds of millions of state and federal Medicaid dollars; the Mills administration has been good for hospital bottom lines.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not enough to save birthing centers. Board members no doubt believe theirs was a responsible decision \u2014 which says more about the relentless financialization and commodification of American healthcare than any number of reports and analyses.<\/p>\n

Mueller attempted to justify the closure by saying the hospital couldn\u2019t provide \u201cthe clinical team necessary to deliver safe care every hour of every day.\u201d This sets an impossible standard, one that treats even routine deliveries as a \u201cmedical event.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rather than seeing hospitals as community institutions, dedicated to serving local needs, our system treats them as cogs in a vast machine. Local boards that might have made a different decision are long gone.<\/p>\n

The Affordable Care Act \u2014 the only major attempt to rationalize healthcare in decades \u2014 is in danger of failing.<\/a> For a time, Americans could buy subsidized insurance, with low-income families covered by Medicaid. Then came the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year, with drastic subsidy cuts \u2014 5 million have dropped their coverage \u2014 and punishing reductions in Medicaid.<\/p>\n

Sen. Susan Collins touts the rural hospital fund in the same bill without mentioning Maine will lose at least three times as much through cuts as it could gain, and even that depends on Trump administration approvals. The first $30 million grant for rural Maine hospitals is for \u2014 you guessed it \u2014 greater \u201cefficiency.\u201d<\/p>\n

American healthcare has reached a state of complexity, all in the name of efficiency and accountability, that baffles even those charged with administering it. Families worry daily over whether services are covered, and hospital bills are indecipherable.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t always like this. Sen. Olympia Snowe, Collins\u2019 former Republican colleague, worked hard to allow rural hospitals to remain independent, but now the pace of centralization, and demands of insurers and drug companies that also receive billions in public funds, have created a system few can navigate and even fewer understand.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve heard too many times of doctors fighting with computer programs over medically necessary treatments, of front-line workers burning out, of patients who face bankruptcy. Considering that Americans already pay more than any comparable nation for healthcare, it would seem none of this is truly necessary.<\/p>\n

And it isn\u2019t. If we embrace the concept that every other civilized country has adopted \u2014 a national system, planned and supervised by the federal government \u2014 we could solve most of these problems. Universal coverage, no consumer billing and easily understood, standardized treatment options can be achieved.<\/p>\n

This formerly radical idea, now going by the slogan Medicare for All, is front and center in this year\u2019s campaigns. It may be our last, best chance to achieve what we should have had all along.<\/p>\n

Then we could look to a day when families bringing children into the world could have the support necessary if we truly want to have a state that values them. May we vote wisely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Douglas Rooks has been a Maine editor and columnist for 41 years. His biography of Gov. Ken Curtis,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":790383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-812437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=812437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}