FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 31, 2026
Contact: Lauryn Fanguen, lfanguen@mainedems.org, 240-354-2571
Jonathan Bush Wants to use AI to Kick Mainers off MaineCare
Augusta, Maine — In a WLOB interview (segment 2, 15:20) with Ray and Dee Dee Richardson, Jonathan Bush doubled down on his obsession with kicking Mainers off MaineCare. This time, he suggested using AI to audit current enrollees, giving them just 30 days to figure out how to get health coverage somewhere else.
This isn’t new territory for Bush. He’s repeatedly said he wants to kick people off MaineCare, including Mainers with jobs, college students, new Mainers, and those he describes as “working age.”
Nearly 400,000 people rely on MaineCare for health insurance. This includes Mainers with disabilities, families with children, fishing families, and Mainers with low incomes.
Bush is one of many Republican candidates who opposes MaineCare. Garrett Mason and former Republican Rick Bennett both voted against MaineCare expansion.
Maine Democratic Party executive director Devon Murphy-Anderson released the following statement:
“Jonathan Bush thinks health care is something you can hand off to a robot and cut people loose when it spits out the wrong answer. Thirty days to ‘figure it out’ isn’t a plan, it’s a threat. While Mainers are already getting crushed by rising health care costs, Bush is talking about pulling the rug out from under working people. That’s not leadership, it’s cold, careless, and completely out of touch with what Mainers want and deserve.”
During the interview, Bush said:
“I would say, functionally, re-enroll. I'm a big efficiency technology guy, like, I don't want someone to literally have state bureaucrats read process paperwork. But you could have an AI agent go through everybody's circumstances and say, ‘These don't meet the criteria. You've got 30 days to go onto the exchange and buy something.”
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