PORTLAND – The Legislature is now reviewing the governor’s plan to address the state’s budgetary shortfall by cutting eligibility to MaineCare (Medicaid) services for childless adults and reducing or eliminating services to many others.

But many of the proposed draconian cuts will not save the state or its taxpayers any money. Rather, essential care to thousands of vulnerable people — the poor, the elderly, those struggling with chronic illnesses — would be cut off.

In addition, the proposed reductions would eliminate thousands of jobs and increase health care, municipal and other costs. Further, the state will lose nearly $2 in federal funds for every $1 it cuts in state General Fund spending.

At Mercy Hospital, our mission is to provide compassionate care, with special consideration to the poor and disadvantaged. We serve many of the MaineCare patients who will lose health coverage if the eligibility cuts are enacted.

MaineCare allows these individuals — many of whom have significant health problems — to access preventative care and other essential services in a cost-effective manner. If the supplemental budget is enacted as proposed, nearly one in five MaineCare participants will lose this lifeline.

These individuals will still get sick, still suffer from chronic conditions and still need health care services. Eliminating their health coverage will not miraculously cure those ills. Rather, substantial new demands would be placed on charity care, which at Mercy has more than doubled to $12 million per year.

We simply do not have the financial capacity to meet this steep rise in charity care, and we do not want to pass on such costs to those who do have insurance, e.g., employers and employees.

The proposed cuts would be a severe blow to Mercy. Our preliminary analysis of the governor’s supplemental budget indicates that the hospital would lose more than $6 million. Cuts of this magnitude cannot be absorbed, making it impossible for us to maintain all of the critical services we now provide.

The impact will be particularly severe at Mercy’s Recovery Center, where about 40 percent of our MaineCare patients would lose coverage and treatment.

The Recovery Center is Maine’s largest substance abuse facility, providing treatment to 8,000 patients each year from all 16 counties in Maine. It is the only in-patient facility in Maine that is totally devoted to substance abuse, and it offers a full range of treatment, including both in-patient and outpatient services.

If the proposed cuts in eligibility are approved, we believe that the Recovery Center will be forced to close, cutting off vital treatment to thousands. Also, closure would result in the loss of about 100 jobs, not including the economic ripple effect in the surrounding communities.

Why is the Recovery Center an important resource? Maine has the highest rate of prescription drug addiction in the nation, fully nine times that of the national average. Alcohol abuse among young adults in Maine is also substantially above the national average. Every dollar spent on drug and alcohol abuse treatment saves the public at least $7, largely through reductions in crime and the need for medical care.

Reducing access to treatment will increase the costs and harmful consequences of the substance abuse epidemic in Maine, including increases in crime, motor vehicle accidents and expensive hospitalizations.

As just one example: The Recovery Center offers an intensive program for pregnant women who are battling addiction. We are happy to say that in the past year, not one of the infants born to these women required care at a neonatal intensive care unit. The actual cost of neonatal care can run into tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. The return on investment is obvious.

Before the proposed cuts were announced, the Recovery Center — indeed, all health care providers — had been working with the state to move to a provider-based managed care platform. We’ve endorsed managed care as a means to achieve better access, quality and efficiency for MaineCare enrollees. It would be tragic to have the Mercy Recovery Center or any other critical services in Maine close before this process can be implemented.

The Legislature faces difficult choices to make up the budgetary shortfall. However, denying health care coverage and services to people who need them cannot be the solution. It will not save money, it will result in the loss of federal matching dollars, and it is premature as the managed care process unfolds.

I urge our legislators to consider the human and financial toll that the MaineCare cuts in the supplemental budget will have, and to seek out other solutions to the budgetary shortfall.

Eileen Skinner is president and CEO of Mercy Hospital in Portland.