“On April 1st, the state of Maine will default, it will not have money to pay the fourth quarter of 2012 Medicaid payments,” Gov. LePage said after he interrupted the work of the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee.

The state’s fiscal year begins in July giving lawmakers three months to work out the issue. LePage went on to tell legislators that their failure to cut $221 million from the budget will force him seek cuts to state education to close the gap.

“I will be calling you back and asking you to give the GPA money so that I don’t have to close nursing homes and we will probably close schools, ” he said. “Or by Feb. 1st, you give me curtailment orders so I can start saving money. This is not normal politics, this not rhetoric.”

But this issue would not be able to be classified under a curtailment order.

A curtailment gives executive power to limit spending only when revenues fall short, not when a program outspends its authorized limits.

“This is a program spending issue and wouldn’t fall under the statutory curtailment authority,” said Grant Pennoyer, director of the nonpartisan Office of Fiscal and Program Review to the Bangor Daily News.

The encounter with Gov. LePage in the committee happened after Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew responded to a Medicaid waiver question. LePage had unexpectedly shown up to listen and fidgeted in his chair. Sen. Richard Rosen invited the governor to the speaker’s table where LePage tried to bully lawmakers.

Previously Democratic Appropriations Committee members had asked the director of the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) whether the administration’s plans to ask for a waiver from the Affordable Care Act were likely to be granted. CMS Director Cindy Mann replied that to date no state’s request for a waiver of the law has been approved. Which represents $37 million of the $220 million in cuts the administration is proposing. Democrats are worried that the proposed budget may be $257 million because the state has no guarantee they will get the waiver.

Rep. Peggy Rotundo,who serves on the Appropriations Committee, said a letter she received from a federal official this week makes it clear that Maine won’t qualify for waivers to make the cuts.States can get waivers to reduce services only for experimental, pilot or demonstration projects.

“Were not talking about a pilot project. We’re not talking about a demonstration,” said Rep. Rotundo.

However, LePage said he could convince U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Director Kathleen Sebelius on the merits of Maine’s plan.

“So I just urge you all to really get this done because I need to get to Washington and try to sit with the secretary and convince her,” said LePage.

With fifty states, with separate needs what Sebelius does in one effects them all. If the secretary grants Maine’s request other states may wish to follow. Federal waivers are complex and never should be viewed as a sure deal like LePage’s proposed supplemental budget treats them.