Dear Editor:

Thank you to Senator Dana Dow and to the Joint Standing Committee on Insurance and Financial Services. On May 4, this committee worked overtime, hearing testimony from scores of Maine people supporting comprehensive healthcare for all Mainers. They listened as constituents told about lives devastated because of lack of healthcare and also listened to how Maine could provide healthcare for all. They heard how publicly financed and privately delivered care for everyone would cost less, save lives and let every Mainer focus on getting well instead of worrying about paying for care ... as in Canada and France and New Zealand, and on and on. Then on May 9, this committee unanimously recommended a feasibility study for universal health care in Maine.

Maine AllCare and our coalition partners, the Southern Maine Workers' Center and the Maine State Nurses Association, who all advocate for comprehensive, publicly supported and privately delivered healthcare, thank you for the thoughtful and responsible action you have taken on behalf of everyone in Maine.

Lynn Cheney
on behalf of Maine AllCare