Medicaid Cuts Ripped at Hearing Handicapped, Others Protest Baldacci Plan

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AUGUSTA - Amber Pratt had a seizure when she was 12 and lost the oxygen supply to her brain. On Monday at the Augusta Civic Center, Pratt, now a young adult confined to a wheelchair, told a panel of state legislators how the brain injury and resulting loss of physical and mental function forced her family to send her out of Maine for rehabilitation.

"I was sent to an expensive rehab in New Hampshire," Pratt said in a halting and slurred voice. "But because of [a recently opened rehabilitation facility in Lewiston], I was able to move back to Maine with my family and friends and receive the services I need."

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Medicaid Cuts Ripped at Hearing Handicapped, Others Protest Baldacci Plan

If MaineCare, the state's Medicaid program, will no longer pay for the daily therapies that keep her functional, however, she'll be forced to return to an out-of-state facility, leaving behind all those who matter most in her life, she said.

Pratt's was just one of hundreds of heart-wrenchin...

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