Photo by HCAM, Buddy and Sophie collecting signatures
Sign (& sign up!) for universal health care!
We’ve gotten 2,000 signatures so far and need your help to get more! Sign up to volunteer, for the June 9 primary and/or beyond! Last Fall, a small group of Mainers filed a universal health care ballot initiative with the Secretary of State: a Resolve, directing the Maine legislature to develop legislation establishing a publicly funded system of health care coverage for all Maine residents. (You can download a copy of the Resolve here).
A recent op-ed on this emphasized the phrase publicly-funded: “Whoa.That is not simply directing the legislature to nibble around the edges with ineffective market-based solutions. That gets right at the heart of the best solution possible – a single payer health care system like Medicare for All that the people have been clamoring for.” [bold emphasis added]
The board of Maine AllCare’s 501c4, HealthCare for All Maine, has begun to organize the signature gathering effort, with an ambitious goal of gathering more than 100,000 signatures this year in order to get the Resolve on the November 2027 ballot.
Sign up to volunteer HERE with the HealthCare for All Maine signature gathering effort.
Gubernatorial Forum – Where Candidates Stand on Healthcare
Four gubernatorial candidates joined our healthcare forum on April 10, 2026, moderated by Henk Goorhuis of Maine AllCare and Garrett Martin of Maine Center for Economic Policy. It included an engaging conversation on how we can improve healthcare for all Mainers by moving towards universal, publicly funded care. A full link to the recording is available here.
All four candidates present—Shenna Bellows, Troy Jackson, Hannah Pingree, and Nirav Shah—promised to support the immediate formation of a Maine State Health Board and a reform of PL 391.
To recap: Public Law 2021, Chapter 391 established the Maine Health Care Plan and called for creation of a Maine Health Care Board to design a state-based universal health care system — but included a major barrier: the law cannot take effect until Congress passes legislation allowing states to finance their own universal health care systems. That federal action has not occurred (although not for lack of trying!), leaving Maine’s plan stalled. We have called for removing that contingency from PL 391 so the Board can be appointed and begin designing a plan, analyzing costs, and pursuing federal waivers.
We at Maine AllCare made that case again this month in the Portland Press Herald in our latest op-ed, Universal healthcare for Maine could be closer than we think, pointing to the current dire conditions that will be exacerbated by federal Medicaid cuts. We were pleased to hear these gubernatorial candidates speak favorably about our proposal and urge all those seeking public office to support universal healthcare for Mainers.
A town hall for Medicare for All
Photo by MAC, Board Members Louise Secordel and Dr. Julie Pease
On May 20, Maine AllCare and our sister organization Healthcare for All Maine joined our colleagues from the Maine State Nurses Association to support Medicare for All. (Watch news footage here and here).
Maine AllCare Board Member Louise Secordel briefly spoke to our organizing and legislative efforts for a state-based solution. The event featured several local advocates and guest speakers Troy Jackson and Graham Platner. Platner called on the crowd to support and work alongside organizations like Maine AllCare to make universal healthcare a reality for all Mainers.
Protecting Our Health Care Infrastructure
Last year, Maine AllCare co-championed legislation (LD 985) with Senator Mike Tipping, placing a one-year moratorium on private equity acquisitions of Maine hospitals and creating a legislative commission to study the issue.
This legislative session, we testified in support of several bills stemming from the commission’s recommendations, targeting sale-leaseback arrangements, excessive debt-loading in acquisitions, and stronger state oversight of private equity health care transactions. Lawmakers voted down three of the four bills.
The fourth (LD 2201), regarding state oversight, was amended, passed, and signed into law on April 13, 2026. The law requires private equity companies, hedge funds, and similar entities to give the state 180 days’ notice before acquiring or assuming operational control of a health care entity — and gives the state authority to block deals that harm the public interest, reduce competition, raise costs, or limit patient access to care.
Read more here: https://www.mainesenate.org/bill-to-protect-maine-health-care-from-private-equity-signed-into-law/
Stand up for MaineCare (Maine’s Medicaid)
Thank you to our allies at Maine Equal Justice and the Maine Center for Economic Policy for calling out the unsubstantiated attacks to our state Medicaid program. (Read more: 7 things to know about political attacks on MaineCare).
Echoing what they wrote: Beyond the urgent need for affordable care, we know that Medicaid supports a health system that benefits us all, even Mainers who have different health insurance. Unfortunately, massive cuts to Medicaid and basic needs programs, passed by Congress and the President (H.R. 1), threaten our health and our hospitals. More than 31,000 Mainers will lose health coverage because of Medicaid work requirements and extra paperwork barriers, and over 3,000 of our lawfully present immigrant neighbors will have their MaineCare coverage eliminated this fall.
MaineCare and MEJ will be sharing more facts about H.R. 1 changes in the coming months. Follow their social media accounts for the latest information:
Your Voices
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
Thank you to all who volunteer their time in writing letters to the editors, op-eds, and testimony in support of publicly funded universal health care.
Our Board Member Michael Bacon leads a Letter to the Editor writing team. Email us at info@maineallcare.org if you’d like to join or just want help writing your own!
Recent letters by us, volunteers, and community members include:
- I lived and worked with universal health care. It works and it’s less expensive.
- Universal healthcare in Maine can lower school budgets | Letter
- Universal healthcare for Maine could be closer than we think | Opinion
- Healthcare should not fall to the private sector | Letter
- For me, this election is about health care | Letter
- Single-payer system will transform health care for the better | Letter
- Strimling: Why I am excited to sign the petition to pass Health Care for All Mainers – Maine Beacon
Thank you for supporting our work towards healthcare for all Mainers!
Donate
Recycle to support our work
Clynk is a simple way to support Maine AllCare’s work—just fill up a Clynk bag with your returnable bottles and cans, put on a MAC sticker, and drop them off at a nearby Hannaford store.
Clynk bags are available at participating Hannaford stores for a small fee. To get MAC stickers, contact us and we’ll put them in the mail to you.
Our Mission
Maine AllCare promotes the establishment of publicly funded health care coverage for all Maine residents.
This system must be efficient, financially sound, politically sustainable, and must provide benefits fairly distributed to all.
We advocate that health care, a basic necessity, be treated as a public good, since it is fundamental to our well-being as individuals and as a democratic nation.