Wasting $53,000 on a failed lawsuit obviously doesn’t amount to very much on the scale of state budget, but who doesn’t enjoy schadenfreude for lunch?
The Associated Press reports that Maine Governor Paul LePage spent the discretionary funds on private lawyers after the state attorney general refused to take his case.
Gov. Paul LePage’s administration spent nearly $53,000 on private lawyers in its failed attempt to remove thousands of low-income young adults from the state’s Medicaid program after being told by Maine’s attorney general that he couldn’t win the case, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. […]
[Attorney General Janet Mills] refused to represent the administration because the case had “little legal merit” and “wouldn’t be a good use of time and money,” she said in an interview this month. She even joined the federal government in fighting LePage’s effort in court.
LePage’s lawsuit sought to save the state money by kicking young adults aged 19 to 20 off Medicaid; coverage which is required under Obamacare until the year 2019. Doing so allegedly would have saved the state $4 million per year.
On the scale of a state budget, $4 million is also an irrelevant amount but LePage thought it was enough to be worth wasting money on.
LePage, a man who once threatened to close his office because he wasn’t allowed to display Fox News in the lobby, was recently reelected for some unfathomable reason.