Maine Letters and Opinion

Join our letter-writing team

March 22, 2024

Let your voice be heard Do you like to write? Are you interested in raising your voice in support of health care for all? We’re looking for volunteers who would like to share their experiences . . . read more »

Letters: Physicians know our system must change

February 14, 2024

Scott Schiff-Slater, a family physician in central Maine, knows how the system works and did all the “right” things, and was still billed hundreds of dollars more than expected for a medical procedure. “…although I . . . read more »

LTE: Speaking out on health care

November 28, 2023

Published by the Ellsworth American, Nov. 16: Absent from most reporting of Nov. 7 election results, which focused on the eight state referendums, was the outcome of Penobscot’s town referendum on health care. The resolution . . . read more »

Op-Ed: A chance to send a message on universal health care

October 27, 2023

David Jolly, a Maine AllCare board member and resident of the small town of Penobscot in Hancock County, is leading a pilot project to put the question of universal health care directly to voters at . . . read more »

LTE: Kudos to the Maine Medical Association’s call for reform

September 29, 2023

The health policy statement – in favor of universal care – shows that the group recognizes the need to put patients’ and caregivers’ interests first. The Maine Medical Association is to be commended for its . . . read more »

LTE: Poll of Mainers confirms what we know about health care

May 31, 2023

In a May 27, 2023, letter to the editor in the Portland Press Herald, Michael Bacon of Westbrook discusses the results of a recent survey commissioned by Consumers for Affordable Health Care about Maine voters’ . . . read more »

Op-ed: Reimagining our relationship to soaring medical costs

April 28, 2023

In an April 25 Maine Voices column in the Portland Press Herald, retired physician David Scotton suggests a thought experiment to better understand how single-payer health care financing would work. “Our society is now being . . . read more »

Op-ed: ‘Publicly funded health care is the answer’

April 23, 2023

Maine AllCare volunteer Dan Bryant, a retired physician from Cape Elizabeth responded to a recent opinion piece on burnout and moral injury in health care, and how a simplified, publicly funded, universal health care system . . . read more »

Emphasis on revenue “sabotages” medical practice

April 10, 2023

In an April 9, 2023, opinion piece in the Portland Press Herald, Deborah Patten, M.D. of Bath lays out how our profit-driven system “sabotages” medical practice. “At some point, most of us who entered medicine . . . read more »

Medicare for each of us in the age of the coronavirus

April 11, 2020

The U.S. public—and increasingly the business community—are becoming acutely aware of the rising costs and inadequacies of our current for-profit system, particularly as the current epidemic unfolds. There is no other choice but Medicare for . . . read more »