MaineCare the Smell of Obamacare

Here's something you should be interested in. Just think of this as the end game when it gets to the national level.

A hospital in Maine lost its challenge to a state law requiring all hospitals to provide free, unlimited health care to low-income families after the 1st Circuit sided with a lower court and tossed the complaint.
Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington, Maine, is a nonprofit hospital with a "tradition of voluntarily providing free and reduced price medical care to low income families," according to the ruling. It sued state officials, alleging that the free-care laws were tantamount to unconstitutional takings of property.
The hospital further argued that "there is no difference in the government occupying a room or the government ordering that a room be made available to someone it designates."
But the Boston-based federal appeals court sided with a district judge in dismissing the complaint, noting that the hospital "is not required to serve low income patients; it may choose to stop using its property as a hospital, which is what makes it subject to Maine's free care laws."
Maine has required hospitals to provide free, unlimited medical services to low-income patients without reimbursement since 1989. Maine pays for some treatment through its Medicaid program known as "MaineCare," but reimbursements are often well below the hospitals' actual cost.

Fascinating eh?