G-2312-20113

Maine Equal Justice Partners (MEJ) is a legal aid organization that performs impact litigation and advocacy on systemic issues impacting people in Maine within three issue areas: access to adequate healthcare, housing, transportation, and childcare; food and income security; higher education and training.

Maine Equal Justice Partners has been a funded partner of CareQuest Institute since 2019, focusing on the expansion of dental benefits in MaineCare, the state's Medicaid program, with a community-driven advocacy approach. MEJ and its partners celebrated the passage of extensive dental benefits for Medicaid beneficiaries in 2021, with benefits beginning in July the following year. CareQuest Institute funding in 2022 allowed MEJ to bring consumer input from their direct legal services area of work into Maine’s benefit implementation through the facilitation of the MaineCare Advisory Committee and Dental Subcommittee. Additionally, MEJ advocated for further policymaker support for the “All Means All” campaign, which aims to expand MaineCare, including oral health benefits, to all Mainers regardless of immigration status. Last year, the organization came close to achieving its goal of coverage for all, but came a few votes shy of securing the policy change.

In the coming year, MEJ will continue to review monthly reports on metrics related to utilization of the dental benefits, including demographic data and provider participation. This data will be used to identify potential legislation needed for 2025 to expand access to care and address social determinants of health that impact the communities most in need of services. In Maine, the shortage of dental providers who accept MaineCare continues to present the most significant barrier to access, and this is exacerbated by the overall shortage of providers in the state, therefore another focus of MEJ’s advocacy is to increase funding to support incentives for providers such as increased Medicaid reimbursement rates, loan repayment, and more flexible license portability options.

As part of the “All Means All” campaign, MEJ will also continue its partnership with the steering committee of immigrant-led organizations to pursue legislative change, perform story collection, and create targeted communications to support the broad base of advocates for this bill. MEJ also stands up and engages with its internal Equal Justice Partners Circle, comprised of Mainers who are immigrants, experience poverty, or other impacted individuals, to maintain and act on its commitments to equity.

The requested amount of $98,552 represents approximately 3% of the organization’s overall budget. Approximately $70,000 of the budget is allocated toward staff time. The remaining line items are allocated for communications expenses, meeting expenses and translation services for advocacy materials.