Mental health and disabilities services for children cut in central Maine. In the face of proposed federal cuts, state lawmakers sparring over the future of MaineCare. A stop-start attempt, Wednesday, by Augusta lawmakers to restore full MaineCare payments to hospitals.

These are just three news stories pertaining to the dismal state of of our system of health care in the past seven days. Look just a little further back and you will be confronted with the troubling news of the closures of birthing units statewide and of Northern Light Inland Hospital in Waterville, the layoffs and the reductions in service, the stripping away of vital federal health grants. Recall that roughly 30% of Maine residents are on MaineCare, the state’s Medicaid program.

Read on, if you dare, and you will be reminded that Maine’s largest hospitals rank “near the bottom among 50 states in three metrics — operating margin, debt burden and age of facilities,” according to a study commissioned by the Maine Hospital Association.

It’s time for the Mills administration and the Legislature to listen to one another, come together and solve this crisis. Once-tolerable cuts need to be reversed. Bills that can save this system from further ruin need to be passed. New funding levers need to be pulled.

These emergency proposals should focus on dedicating state support to the service providers that need it most desperately. Some interventions should be done with an eye to patient protection; others can prioritize pay and staffing.

That withholding MaineCare reimbursements to hospitals and providers was ever the result of an avoidable political impasse in Augusta is unacceptable and should be the source of embarrassment for everybody who failed to participate in compromise. State Senate Republicans’ objections to eligibility for coverage (seeking enrollment limits and work requirements), in particular, will sound very silly if services and care steadily become so deficient, statewide, that coverage ceases to matter.