Maine Health Access Foundation Awards $2.5M To Fund 18 State Health Care Projects

The Maine Health Access Foundation on July 15 awarded $2.5 million in grants to fund 18 projects in Maine designed to expand health care access to the uninsured, terminally ill people, rural Maine residents and immigrants, the Portland Press Herald reports. Almost one-third of the funding will go to five programs -- Portland Identification and Early Referral Program, Maine Center for Public Health, Common Ties Mental Health Coalition, Pine Tree Society for Handicapped Children and Sweetser -- that provide mental health preventative care and treatment, according to the Press Herald. Foundation Executive Director Dr. Wendy Wolf said the foundation awarded grants to groups that seek to make long-term improvements in the state's health care system. "We have to go beyond putting the Band-Aid on. ... [W]e looked more at how we can boost the system forward and make it a better system that can be sustained even when the funding is over," Wolf said. The foundation, which has assets of about $85 million, was created in 2000 from the sale of not-for-profit insurer Blue Shield of Maine to for-profit Anthem (Huang, Portland Press Herald, 7/16).