Mainers are paying more at the pump and more to heat their homes as the Iran war creates instability in the oil market. News Center Maine reports: “Average gas prices in Maine are hovering around $3.41 per gallon as instability in the Middle East pushes crude oil prices higher and raises heating fuel costs.”
Mainers are facing an affordability crisis as costs continue to rise on everything from gasoline to home heating to health care. But for many Maine families, the most painful increase is at the grocery store. Grocery prices have risen sharply in Maine, with cost increases being connected to Trump’s tariffs. And experts say those prices may never come down.
The Maine Morning Star reports: “Sweeping Medicaid cuts recently signed into federal law could push hundreds of hospitals across the country to the brink of closure — and Maine’s rural hospitals are among the most vulnerable … more than 330 hospitals nationwide — including Aroostook Medical Center in Presque Isle and Maine Coast Memorial Hospital in Ellsworth — are at immediate risk of shutting down due to reductions in Medicaid funding.”
As masked federal agents are gunning down innocent citizens in Minneapolis, knocking down doors without warrants and detaining local law enforcement here in Maine, Senator Susan Collins is giving ICE even more power. Collins wrote the bill to increase ICE funding with no restrictions and no restraints. And now she is standing with her party leaders against accountability, against warrants, and allowing ICE to raid schools, hospitals and churches.
Susan Collins is riding out her fifth term in the US Senate, and celebrating 28 years in Washington, DC. Many argue that spending nearly three decades in Washington has caused Collins to lose touch with the issues that matter in Maine, pointing to her votes against lowering health care costs, against lowering utility bills, and against middle class tax cuts while voting to give tax breaks to billionaires.
Everywhere you go, the tariffs are making life in Maine more expensive. And Senator Collins is under fire for making things even worse. Collins voted to support the largest Medicaid cuts in history. 400,000 Mainers could lose health care, and rural hospitals are being forced to close. Collins also voted with her party leaders to take away health care tax credits, causing health insurance premiums to skyrocket in Maine.
Susan Collins was “a key vote in advancing” the president’s cuts to Medicaid, which are hitting Maine especially hard. The “largest Medicaid cut in U.S. history” means that 400,000 Mainers, including half of Maine’s children, could lose health care coverage and rural hospitals are being forced to close. Collins also voted with her party leaders to take away health care tax credits, jacking up insurance costs.
Susan Collins voted to increase health insurance premiums, and Mainers are feeling the squeeze. CBS 13 News reports that “Mainers are now seeing double, triple what they were previously paying for premiums.” Collins voted repeatedly to end the ACA health care tax credits, causing premiums to skyrocket starting January 1st of this year.
As reported in the Maine Morning Star, more than 60,000 Mainers have seen their health insurance premiums skyrocket this year, forcing thousands to now live without insurance coverage at all. “Now, thousands are going uninsured, and a lot more are choosing plans that only cover the bare minimum, based on preliminary enrollment data from the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.”
The Bangor Daily News reports: “As the war in Iran rages on, mortgage rates are going up … Late March saw the biggest one-week surge since April 2025, when the White House made its first shock-and-awe tariff announcements.” This cost increase comes amid a growing affordability crisis in Maine, with “many Americans struggling to afford higher prices on everything from milk to gas.”
Fox News reports the Iran War is costing American taxpayers “a billion dollars a day” and oil prices went “up 27% in a week.” Meanwhile, home in Maine, families are struggling to afford groceries, housing, utilities and skyrocketing health insurance premiums. Many Mainers are now expressing concern that their tax dollars are being spent to wage another war in the Middle East, when they feel that money is needed here in Maine.
Maine Beacon reports: “more than 30,000 Mainers are expected to lose their health insurance coverage after congressional Republicans slashed more than $1 trillion in Medicaid spending and they have chosen not to extend [ACA] subsidies into next year.”
Maine Public Radio reports that Meredith Eilers, a mother of three, said her premiums are set to “skyrocket to more than $1,400 a month” after health care tax credits expired. This marks a roughly nine-fold increase from what she had previously been paying.