Gov. Paul LePage says Maine has too many hospitals.

His comments came in response to Tuesday’s announcement that Portland-based Maine Medical Center was eliminating 225 jobs.

“I wish it wasn’t happening, but I will say this: The state of New Hampshire has 1.3 million people and 26 hospitals. Maine has 1,280,000 people with 39 hospitals,” LePage said Wednesday. “We definitely have too many hospitals in the state of Maine.”

“There will come a time when more people die than are being born, what’s gonna happen is something is gonna have to contract,” LePage said.

“I’d like to ask the governor which hospitals he’d like to shut down,” Maine Hospital Association spokesman Steve Michaud responded. “I hear this from time to time, but nobody ever names specific hospitals. I’d love to have a public discussion about this topic.”

Maine Med President and CEO Rich Peterson said business conditions and late or insufficient payments from government and commercial payers prompted the cuts announced Tuesday.

The issue of hospital consolidation has been a contentious one in the Brunswick area.

Debt-laden

Parkview Adventist

Medical Center has pursued a merger with Central Maine Healthcare Inc., which bailed it out of debt with more than $10 million in cash and staff support from 2008 to 2010.

Lewiston-based CMHC submitted an application to the state in August 2012 to take over Parkview’s financial control and management. Review of that application is ongoing at the state Department of Health and Human Services, which has rejected its application once for insufficient data.

Sounding a theme similar to Maine Med, Parkview officials announced a round of budget cuts and layoffs in June — including closure of its intensive-care unit — citing fewer patient visits and balky state payments of more than $3.1 million for MaineCare services.

Parkview is laying off up to 16 employees, merging programs and cross-training personnel to trim $2.5 million from its 2013 operating budget and avoid finishing the year $1.3 million in the red. Officials said in June they see the need for another $500,000 in budget cuts.

During the past four months, Parkview has lost more than $1.2 million and is on track to lose another $300,000 by the end of the fiscal year, officials have said.

Part of the problem for Parkview is a low occupancy rate for the 55-bed facility: Only 22 percent of its beds have been in use, down from 23 percent a year ago.

Although Mid Coast Hospital in Brunswick has maintained a 60 percent occupancy rate, it, too, is waiting on $14 million in MaineCare payments, officials there have said.

Driving the consolidations is the realization that there are not enough patients — or payers — supporting Maine hospitals.

“If we don’t have the number of patients, we don’t need as much staff,” Parkview spokeswoman Tory Ryden said in June. “You don’t need two nurses in the intensive care unit if you have one patient.”

LePage has a solution — though one that’s far off.

“We’re working on ways to change the demographics, get you young people to start making babies,” the governor said Wednesday.