The Lisbon Reporter

WELCOME TO THE LISBON REPORTER. In an effort to keep our community informed of what is going on at local and Federal levels of government, we decided to create this on-line newspaper. It is our hope that this on-line newspaper will help you stay informed so that you can get involved and take action for the benefit of our ENTIRE community. Thank you for visiting and please check back frequently for information about what is happening in LISBON/LISBON FALLS, MAINE USA

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Following The Paper Trail -The Maine WIRE: “Maine Reporters’ Training Funded by Pro-ObamaCare Group” plus 1 more‏

Maine Reporters’ Training Funded by Pro-ObamaCare Group

A group of Maine reporters has received financial support from a pro-Obamacare organization to attend health care reporting workshops. The Maine Health Access Foundation, a pro-Obamacare organization that has been active in liberal health care issues since its state-mandated creation in 2000, provided scholarship underwriting for a number of Maine reporters from the Bangor Daily News, Portland Press Herald, Maine Public Broadcasting, the Associated Press, and other Maine news organizations.

Notable among the recipients of the scholarship are health care reporters from the state’s largest newspapers. Meg Haskell and Jackie Farwell of the Bangor Daily News have provided the bulk of reporting for the paper on Maine health reform initiatives, and have been accused by conservatives in Maine of tilting coverage against free-market reforms. Haskell received funding for health care reporting training from MeHAF in 2005, Farwell in 2012. John Richardson of the MaineToday Media papers, who has reported extensively on state health reforms initiatives, was the recipient of the scholarship funding in 2011.

The health care “fellowship” attended by the Maine reporters is a nine-day workshop held in Boston. Among the sessions held at the event was one called “States on the Edge” where a featured speaker was Trish Riley, former Maine governor John Baldacci’s health care chief and the architect of Maine’s failed government-run health care experiment – Dirigo Health. Reporters in the fellowship also had the chance to attend a Red Sox game as part of the trip.

The Maine Health Access Foundation was founded in 2000, as a condition of the purchase of Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Maine by Anthem. As a condition of the sale, Maine’s Board of Insurance mandated that “At least $81.69 million of the sale proceeds paid for the business of Blue Cross must be immediately transferred to the Charitable Foundation as soon as the sale is complete.”

Several prominent liberal activists sit on MeHAF’s Board of Trustees, including Nancy Fritz, former Director of Homeless Initiatives at Maine Housing, and Sara Gagne-Holmes, the Executive Director of Maine Equal Justice Partners.The group came out actively in support of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) in 2009. MEHAF Executive Director Wendy Wolf wrote in an ‘Open letter from MeHAF’s President and CEO’:

“MeHAF embraces this law as an unprecedented opportunity to advance our mission to promote affordable and timely access to comprehensive, quality health care, and improve the health of every Maine resident – particularly those who are uninsured.”