AUGUSTA – Amber Pratt had a seizure when she was 12 and lost the oxygen supply to her brain. On Monday at the Augusta Civic Center, Pratt, now a young adult confined to a wheelchair, told a panel of state legislators how the brain injury and resulting loss of physical and mental function forced her family to send her out of Maine for rehabilitation.

“I was sent to an expensive rehab in New Hampshire,” Pratt said in a halting and slurred voice. “But because of [a recently opened rehabilitation facility in Lewiston], I was able to move back to Maine with my family and friends and receive the services I need.”

If MaineCare, the state’s Medicaid program, will no longer pay for the daily therapies that keep her functional, however, she’ll be forced to return to an out-of-state facility, leaving behind all those who matter most in her life, she said.

Pratt’s was just one of hundreds of heart-wrenching stories presented to lawmakers at a public hearing on Gov. John Baldacci’s proposed cuts to Medicaid programs.

Close to 1,500 people thronged the civic center, arriving from areas statewide to protest the cuts that the administration says are necessary to balance the state budget.

They came in school buses, handicapped-accessible vans and private cars. With their wheelchairs, walkers, braces, working dogs, friends, families, caretakers and professional providers, they overflowed one large meeting room, forcing facility staff to set up another 800 seats in the adjacent auditorium.

The lawmakers – members of the Appropriations Committee and the Health and Human Services Committee – split into two groups to take testimony in each room from a patient queue of speakers that never seemed to grow shorter.

Speakers were limited to three minutes at the microphone, but legislators made allowances for the difficulty some had in forming words or controlling their emotions.

“I went into the hospital for heart surgery,” testified Jeanine Hebert, once an articulate national advocate for shoe industry workers. “I came out 41/2 months later like this.”

Her small frame contorted in her wheelchair, and, in speech twisted and forced, Hebert said that without the support of the MaineCare services she receives, she’ll have to live in a nursing home – at a cost of more than $2,000 a day – instead of at home with her husband.

“I know the governor must have had a brain injury when he was in that rollover of his vehicle,” she said, drawing applause and hoots from the crowd.

Several references were made to Baldacci’s recent accident in southern Maine, when the vehicle in which he was a passenger left the road and flipped over.

The governor emerged with only bumps and bruises, but several in the crowd at the civic center used the episode to illustrate the suddenness and unpredictability with which anyone – even the powerful, privileged and successful – can be left with profound mental and physical disabilities.

Stacks of written testimony were received as well. “At the time of her accident, Monica was a junior in high school, fourth in her class – taking mostly Advanced Placement courses, a member of our district’s health committee, a cheerleader, a member of the student council and the National Honor Society. How could this happen to her?” wrote an anguished mother.

With continuing physical, speech, occupational and neuropsychological therapies, she wrote, her daughter has expectations of going to college and living a very functional life, despite her extensive and irreversible brain trauma.

But these therapies – along with coverage for about 15 other services ranging from dental care to counseling services to prosthetic legs – are slated for elimination under the proposed Medicaid budget amendment for fiscal year 2005. Funding for many other services also would be cut significantly.

Trish Riley, head of the Governor’s Office of Health Policy and Finance, said the cuts are designed to eliminate a $127 million shortfall in the Medicaid budget without cutting anyone out of the program.

“As painful as this is, at least we’re not gutting the program like they have in some other states,” she said.

The streamlined “MaineCare Basic” will continue to fund basics such as primary health care, prescription drugs, home health services and substance abuse services, Riley said, but admitted that many services, while still available, will be limited or require prior authorization. No changes have been made to services for children, she said.

Because Baldacci is committed to not raising taxes, she said, it’s unlikely that any big changes will be made in the budget proposal, despite the high-profile public outcry.

Some hope for relief lingers in the form of a possible infusion of federal funds, through savings that might be realized in the merging of the Department of Human Services and the Department of Behavioral and Developmental Services, and in the eventual improvement of the state and national economy, Riley said.

Several speakers, as well as Rep. Sean Faircloth, D-Bangor, who serves on the Appropriations Committee, suggested overriding Baldacci’s aversion to new taxes and imposing a tax on cigarettes, alcohol, soda and other “frills” to support MaineCare services and programs.

Faircloth also questioned whether some families might be able to pay on a sliding scale for services they now receive for free. Faircloth said he could not support the current proposal.

At the State House, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers challenged the feasibility of the budget. Senate Democratic leader Sharon Treat, D-Farmingdale, called the cuts “unacceptable” and said lawmakers must continue to search for “realistic” solutions to the MaineCare crisis.

Other Democrats suggested tapping the tobacco settlement money in the Fund for a Healthy Maine, which some are trying to protect with a constitutional amendment.

Senate Republican leader Paul Davis, R-Sangerville, said Baldacci should free up money he has set aside for his hallmark health reform plan.

Cutting essential services to MaineCare participants “while the governor hordes a $53 million pot of money for his Dirigo Health … is unconscionable,” Davis said.

“If the governor wants to pass this horrible budget, he can try to do it without Republican support,” Davis added.

A work session has not yet been scheduled for the Medicaid portion of the budget proposal, which is part of the larger state supplemental budget proposed in LD 1919.