Why People Distrust Government

                                                         By David K. Shipler 

            This is a story about high-handed Maine state officials proposing to jeopardize island residents’ emergency access to mainland hospitals. It is a local outrage, small in comparison to the sweeping outrages that are uprooting global security and undermining American democracy. But its significance is immense, because it’s a case study in how anti-government sentiment can be generated among good citizens who depend on key services. Nationwide, that disaffection has been a key element in the country’s dramatic political shifts.

            The issue is straightforward. For 65 years, since the state launched car ferry service, the boats have docked overnight on four islands, which don’t have hospitals but are populated year- round and have a surge of summer residents. So, the Maine State Ferry Service provides sleeping quarters on the islands for the crews, who can be roused if there’s a medical emergency in the middle of the night. An island ambulance drives onto the ferry and drives off on the mainland.

That system might be scrapped for three of the islands in two or three years, if the state has its way. The commissioner of transportation, Bruce Van Note, and the director of the ferry service, William Geary, say they’re considering docking the ferries overnight on the mainland. They are in the Democratic administration of Governor Janet Mills, whose press secretary, Ben Goodman, did not answer my emailed request for an explanation of her position.

Under the proposal, there would be no transportation by ambulance between the last ferry run of the day and the first the next morning. I’m biased, because I spend four to five months a year on Swan’s Island: I’ll try to arrange my stroke or heart attack in the daytime.

            There are other ways to get off the islands. LifeFlight has highly equipped helicopters, but only five for the whole state. If there’s one available, it can fly in at night, but here’s the catch: not in thick fog, which is endemic in Maine.

            Lobstermen and other island residents have boats, of course, and when things get tough, people step up to help. The Coast Guard might come, and state officials have mentioned small rescue boats as an option. But an ambulance couldn’t drive on to any of them. Getting a stretcher-bound patient down a steep ramp to a floating dock and onto a mostly open boat is a dangerous, tricky exercise, especially on an icy winter night with rough seas and freezing wind. And outside an ambulance with medical equipment and trained emergency volunteers, a patient in an acute condition runs a high risk. Watch this video of the transfer of a patient via lobster boat from the island of North Haven.   

             North Haven, Swan’s, and Islesboro would lose their overnight boats under the plan. The fourth island, Vinalhaven, is served by two boats, so one could still spend the night there. (Two other islands, Frenchboro and Matinicus, get only infrequent runs by state ferries, and boats have never berthed there overnight.)

            The state cites two reasons for mainland docking: First, it would save money on crew quarters because workers could live at home and commute. But many crew live too far from the mainland terminals to make daily drives, and some have told islanders that they’d quit—this during a shortage of able-bodied seaman qualified to staff the boats.

            The second argument holds that new boats will be hybrid diesel-electric, whose batteries cannot be charged on islands, which get electricity via submarine cables and have insufficient power infrastructure. Can’t that be upgraded? Let’s pretend we’re living in the 21^st century!

            Aside from the medical issue, islanders are worried about their children, many of whom commute by the first morning ferry at 6:45 to high school on the mainland. Some students board with families on the mainland instead of going home every night, which might become unavoidable under the state’s docking plan.

            Friction between island communities and the state ferry service is longstanding, mostly about rising fares, breakdowns, and missed runs because of crew shortages. But what might be even more important than the nuts-and-bolts of particular disputes is the sense of powerlessness among folks utterly dependent on a distant agency that seems to listen to them reluctantly, if at all. The state ferry service is essentially a monopoly, and it’s not fun when you have to mobilize to obtain basic respect for your dignity.

On the other hand, the ferries are heavily subsidized by the state government, and no private company could run them at the existing fares, which don’t cover the rising costs of fuel, wages, and maintenance. You don’t hear rhapsodies of gratitude for this fact on the islands, though, because the fares are high enough to cause pain. The state raised them by 15 percent last summer and wants another 15 percent increase this year. Summertime roundtrip rates for a passenger to most islands would be $23 for a 40- to 60-minute journey, and $55 for a vehicle and driver. That means $78 to take a loved-one for chemo, for example, a hardship for a good many islanders.

The ferry service holds hearings, as the law requires, but some legislators listening to the uproar from their island constituents aren’t taking any chances. A bill requiring nighttime docking on the islands has been introduced by eight state legislators—four Democrats and four Republicans—in a region that is politically divided. Swan’s Island, for example, lies in a district that gave its one electoral vote to Trump (Maine splits its electoral votes), and yet is represented by a Democratic House member in Washington, DC.

Ferry schedules are but one assault on people’s well-being. Health care in Maine and elsewhere is being damaged more broadly by Republicans in Washington. The cuts they are considering to Medicaid, the insurance program for low-income citizens, would hurt everyone, not just recipients. Because many rural hospitals and clinics rely on Medicaid payments, some would have to reduce services or even close. And the Trump administration’s sudden, chain-saw halt of medical research into antiviral drugs, cancer, heart disease, and the like will cause long-term harm to the nation’s future health.

            Nevertheless, tampering with islands’ lifelines to hospitals has an immediacy that everyone across the political spectrum can understand. If Democrats want to win back rural, working-class voters, this would be a good place to start. That includes you, Governor Mills, wherever you are.