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Kaitlyn Cunningham Morse is founder and owner of Maine Aging Partners, LLC.
Most families don't plan for Medicaid until they're already in crisis. A hospital stay ends and discharge planners say it's time to move. A parent can no longer manage safely at home. Or an attorney advises that it's time to prepare for the costs of care. Only then do families realize just how central Medicaid has become to the options available.
For some, Medicaid is the right path. But too many don't know they have a choice. They liquidate savings or sell off assets because they assume that's the only way forward.
Later, they discover they could have held on to resources that would have given them more options for care. Instead of a safety net, Medicaid becomes a backward deal -- not because of the program itself, but because families were left in the dark until it was too late.
Lawyers and social workers can help families navigate Medicaid. At their best, they slow things down and explain not only the benefits but also the disadvantages.
Yet even with that support, they can't solve the deeper problem: we've allowed Medicaid to become the default gateway for aging services. That's not sustainable. What families need is a broader framework that gives them clear, viable choices before crisis hits.
This silence around Medicaid reflects a larger failure. We rarely ask whether it should carry the weight of aging care at all. We don't debate whether middle-income families deserve alternatives. We don't confront how federal baselines and state discretion either expand or choke off options. Instead, we wait for crisis and then funnel families into a path that too often limits them.
That gap between federal and state roles is visible in this Senate race. Graham Platner has captured attention with his energy and talk of equity. That spark has value, particularly at the state level, where new conversations can drive policy change. But so far, there's little evidence he's spoken directly about aging or the choices families face. Energy without specifics leaves families unseen.
Sen. Susan Collins offers a different style. She has given many speeches on the Senate floor about aging and understands that investment is pivotal. In Washington, she plays the role of steward -- ensuring consistency through her influence on appropriations. And if she sat down with a family in crisis, I believe she'd listen carefully and help them identify options.
But stability without reform isn't enough. Pouring dollars into a framework already worn thin by neglect perpetuates the cycle.
Platner sparks. Collins steadies. But neither has yet delivered the open, urgent conversation older Mainers deserve. Until leaders at both the state and federal levels treat aging not as a sideline but as the test of our politics, families will continue to find themselves stranded in crisis, carrying the burden alone.
Aging isn't a special interest. It's the future of every Maine family. And until we stop treating Medicaid as the default -- and start lining services up differently -- we'll keep investing in neglect instead of creating the care Maine families deserve.