AUGUSTA – The Legislature’s Democratic leaders have told Gov. Paul LePage that they will pass his plan to pay back Maine’s hospitals but they want it directly linked to the state’s participation in a federal program to expand health care coverage for low-income Mainers.

LePage blasted the proposal Friday, saying Democrats had “reneged” on their agreement to pay the state’s 39 hospitals for overdue Medicaid reimbursements.

House Speaker Mark Eves, D-North Berwick, and Senate President Justin Alfond, D-Portland, told the governor their plan Thursday during a closed-door meeting in the governor’s Cabinet Room. It marks a shift in the debate over paying back more than $484 million to the hospitals and a separate policy to expand Medicaid to about 55,000 Mainers.

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