MMA Legislative Committee Chairs Katherine Pope, M.D. and Stephen Meister, M.D. welcome you to participate in the weekly conference calls of the MMA Legislative Committee.

The next MMA Legislative Committee weekly conference call for the First Regular Session of the 128th Maine Legislature will take place tomorrow, Tuesday, May 2nd, at 8:00 p.m.

Legislative Committee members and specialty society legislative liaisons are strongly encouraged to participate. Any physician, practice manager, or other staff member who is interested in the MMA's legislative advocacy also is welcome to participate. It is not necessary to RSVP for the calls.

Please use the following conference call number and passcode. These will remain the same for every weekly call during the session.

Conference call number:  207-480-4790
Passcode:  057614#

The purpose of the weekly conference calls is to review and finalize the MMA's position on bills printed the previous week, to hear the views of specialty societies on the new bills or their concerns about any current health policy issues, and to discuss the highlights of legislative action of the week. The calls rarely last longer than an hour. The MMA staff lists a suggested position for each bill and any medical specialty particularly affected by the bill. 

If you have an opinion about any of these bills, but cannot participate in the call, please contact Andrew MacLean, Deputy EVP & General Counsel at amaclean@mainemed.com or 480-4187, or Peter Michaud, Associate General Counsel at pmichaud@mainemed.com or 480-4199.

The following are bills of interest to the physician community printed last week. We will discuss the priority bills marked with an asterisk (*) first. This will be important when the list grows in the next few weeks.

NOTE: The MMA positions stated in parentheses after the bill titles are simply staff suggestions. They are not necessarily the positions taken by the Legislative Committee or the MMA.

This year is marked by two topics that have been the subjects of an inordinately large number of bills: recreational marijuana legalization and opioids. In order to allow clearer discussion of these bills during the legislative calls, the marijuana bills will be marked with a superscript "m" and the opioid bills with a superscript "o". We welcome your comments on whether this makes things easier or more difficult for you. Following are the bills of the week: 

*LD 1564: An Act To Conform State Law to Federal Law While Promoting Safe Working Environments for Minors (Pediatrics, Family Medicine) (Monitor)

*LD 1587: An Act To Provide Economic Security to Maine Families through the Creation of a Paid Family Medical Leave System (All) (Monitor)