Fried quoted in American Prospect article on Maine’s Medicaid expansion campaign
Amy Fried, a political science professor at the University of Maine, was quoted in The American Prospect article, “How Maine’s Medicaid expansion campaign got to yes.” Mainers voted 59 to 41 percent to expand Medicaid, making Maine the first state to approve Medicaid expansion at the ballot box. Both the turnout and the margin of victory were higher than expected in a year with no candidate elections and just four voter initiatives on ballots statewide, according to the article. Health care has long been a divisive topic in Maine, the article states, and in the past five years, 40,000 Mainers have lost health insurance. “The whole fight over repealing and replacing Obamacare was positive in that it reminded Mainers of why they care about health care,” Fried said. “People want more and better health care, not less and worse health care.”