More dentists are stepping up to provide dental homes for Head Start and Early Head Start children. The nearly 4,000 children ages birth to age 5 who attend Head Start and Early Head Start child development programs in Maine have historically faced challenges finding dentists to take them on as permanent patients in a “dental home”, where they can receive continuous and coordinated care. Early oral health services are essential to preventing oral disease in all young children, and in the Head Start program there is a requirement that children be up to date on required dental services. However, a combination of factors has kept Head Start from meeting these requirements. These include a lack of understanding on the part of parents about the importance of oral health, and the distribution and number of dental practices willing and able to serve young children, many of whom have no insurance or are on MaineCare.

This is about to change with the advent of the Maine’s Dental Home Initiative, a state-based national Head Start effort, which is a project of the Maine Dental Access Coalition, the Maine Office of Head Start, the Maine Dental Association and the University of Maine at Augusta at its state-of the art-dental clinic in Bangor.

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Democratic lawmakers on the Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee today are calling on the LePage Administration to release the details of a substantive “change package” it submitted to Republicans last week to address the shortfall in the 2013 budget for the Department of Health and Human Services.

The governor’s new suggested changes have not had a public hearing.

“The governor has handed down secret marching orders to the Republicans with no intention of informing the public,” said Rep. Peggy Rotundo of Lewiston, the lead House Democrat on the Appropriations Committee. “I’m saddened to see such an end run around the public and disregard for our working together. As a veteran member of this committee, I’ve never seen such an over step by a governor. He may as well be chairing the committee.”

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For a number of years male veterans have been honored with commemorative coins. Now Maine Women veterans are being honored with State of Maine Silver Commemorative Coins in a ceremony at the Maine Veterans Home in Scarborough.

These commemorative coins have the same image of the Women Veterans Plaque that hangs in the Hall of Flags Hall of Flags at the State House in Augusta. The effort to highlight the service of women to our country began in 2009. The coins will be presented to eight women who are veterans of World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War and Persian Gulf War. There will be other women veterans honored, in the same way, throughout the state in the coming years. Donations to keep the project going can be made.

Maine Insights is announcing a new format! Based on surveys and Google statistics that highlight your interests, this community, volunteer news magazine will report on more of what you want to read. Every day there will continue to be online reporting based on your interests. And the in-print edition will now appear quarterly, with more in-depth articles and interviews.

Maine Insights is a non-profit 501(c)4 corporation and an associate member of the Maine Press Association.
Contributions to help support this publication — dedicated to growing Maine communities — are very appreciated. Please click here for a Paypal link. We look forward to continuing to serve you as we have for the past six years! Thank you for your insights and support.

Schook Kids in the Museum

The Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad Company and Museum is pleased to announce the beginning of daily train service. The museum and railroad will be open daily, from 10am-4pm, now through October 31st.

“This is an excellent time for families to invest in an annual pass which allows a family of four to enjoy the train, museum and nearly all of our special events free of charge for the entire year!” said Executive Director, Allison Tevsh Zittel. “We hope that families will share in the excitement of Maine’s unique railroad history, while having fun exploring the museum with their children.”

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Today Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced $1,268,173 in grants awarded to community health centers in Maine due to the new health care law – the Affordable Care Act. Penobscot Community Health Center, Inc.of Bangor will receive $498,173.Pines Health Service,of Caribou will get $270, and $500,000 will go to the City of Portland.

“President Obama’s health care law is making community health centers in Maine stronger,” said Secretary Sebelius. “For many Americans, community health centers are the major source of care that ranges from prevention to treatment of chronic diseases. This investment will expand our ability to provide high-quality care to millions of people while supporting good paying jobs in communities across the country.”

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The Portland Community Health Center is getting a $500,000 grant to help them expand and renovate the facility on Park Avenue.

“This investment makes health care more accessible for people in our community who can’t afford it, without putting that burden on local property taxes,” said Congresswoman Chellie Pingree. “And the work that this money will fund also helps support local jobs, not just in the health center itself but construction jobs to do the necessary renovations.”

Nationwide employment at health centers is up 15 percent because of these investments, supporting thousands of good-paying health care jobs for nurse, medical technicians and others.

The funding announced today will allow the Health Center to renovate the clinic, providing more space to see additional patients and make medical care more efficient.

“This is great news and it’s going to allow us to do the expansion necessary to see one-third more patients. Without this funding, these renovations wouldn’t be possible,” said Leslie Brancato, CEO of the Health Clinic.

The Portland Community Health Center currently serves 3,000 patients, although the renovations funded by this grant will allow them to see an additional 1,000 patients. Payment is made on a sliding scale based on a patient’s ability to pay.

The grant announced today is funded by the Affordable Care Act, which Pingree co-sponsored in her first year in Congress.

by Gina Hamilton of the New Maine Times where this is posted

In the wake of the killing of Trayvon Martin, most Americans became aware of the existence of a 40-year-old shadowy think tank called ALEC — the American Legislative Exchange Council — and the extent to which this organization is changing the laws under which we all live, and in some cases, sadly, die.

ALEC, on its website, claims to be for limited government, but also claims it is non-partisan. In fact, it is entirely dominated by the GOP and by corporate interests. And right now, ALEC is losing much of that corporate sponsorship.

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A public opinion survey question on a proposal to give people credit for work done caring for children and family members with disabilities when calculating their Social Security benefits resulted in 67.5 percent of those surveyed favoring the idea.

“Taking care of a family member is one of the most important jobs anyone can have and people who make that choice should not be penalized by having their Social Security benefits reduced,” said Congresswoman Chellie Pingree. “A caregiver credit would help preserve the future financial stability of family members who stay home or reduce their work hours to take care of a loved one. It’s good for individuals, it’s good for workers and it’s good for our whole society.”

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Interest rates on student loans will double July 1 if congress doesn’t take action. Democrats in the House have proposed paying for the lower interest rates by eliminating some tax breaks for oil and gas companies. Republicans say they have a solution too.

A Republican House bill passed a bill today that would pay for the student loan fix by repealing the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which provides support for hundreds of thousands of breast and cervical cancer screenings as well as childhood immunizations and screening newborns for birth defects. President Obama has stated he would veto the measure if it made it to his desk.

“It’s outrageous that Republican leadership is using the crisis of student debt as a tool in another attack on women and the entire middle class,” said Congresswoman Chellie Pingree. “They are telling students struggling with debt that we can help you, but only if we take away funding for cervical and breast cancer screenings, childhood immunizations and birth defect treatments.”

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