Just how determined will Janet Mills be in fighting Donald Trump over biological males' access to female spaces and competition? To answer that, the Daily Wire followed the age-old media strategy -- follow the money.
No, not the federal money, which is at issue in this standoff between the governor and the president. Amanda Prestigiacomo and Mary Margaret Olohan followed the money from the transgender medical industry to Mills, both personally and professionally, and discovered a pipeline to both. Mills' sister is a top exec at MaineHealth, whose revenues have more than doubled thanks in part to Mills' subsidies for trans 'care' mandates in the state -- and MaineHealth has amply repaid Mills in campaign support:
Maine is set to lose federal funding for its Department of Education and school meal program over Governor Janet Mills’s refusal to conform to the Trump administration’s transgender policies. But the network of transgender groups surrounding Mills and her family — and paying them handsomely — could shed some light on why Maine’s leadership seems unwilling to budge.
Mills’ continued support for these policies seems baffling, given how unpopular they are in Maine.
MaineHealth — where Mills’ sister, Dora Anne Mills, is chief health improvement officer — was a top donor to Mills’ 2022 gubernatorial run. The healthcare system offers damaging and irreversible “treatments” for gender-confused minors, such as puberty blockers, “gender affirming hormone therapy,” and “menstrual suppression.”
This began coming to light last October, when the Maine Wire began researching claims from pediatric trans-care patients in the state. In the first four years of Mills' mandates, nearly 100 children had filed claims for pediatric sex-change therapies totalling nearly a quarter-million dollars. MaineHealth appears to be the main participant in these claims:
The Maine Medical Center had, by far, the most transgender children patients, with 50 minor patients receiving transgender drugs across the healthcare system’s three hospitals in Saco, Biddeford, and Portland.
The Maine Medical Center is a part of the MaineHealth non-profit. According to Form 990 tax filings, MaineHealth received $79,456,710 in taxpayer funding last year.
The Medical Center submitted $32,930 worth of insurance claims on 244 prescriptions for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormone treatments but did not perform any transgender surgeries for children.
The Plastic and Hand Surgical Associates in South Portland performed by far the most transgender surgeries for minors, with 15 surgeries and $118,176 in charges submitted to insurance.
Apparently, Mills thought that these were rookie numbers and that Maine needed to pump those numbers up. In 2023, Mills signed a bill that allowed children to seek sex-change counseling without parental consent, which MaineHealth actively provides. She followed that up last year by signing a bill that shields providers of pediatric "transgender care" from enforcement of laws in other states, essentially shielding her sister's firm from any accountability for interfering in parental rights for children from out of state.
Mills' actions certainly has proven profitable for Mills' sister:
“MaineHealth, nominally a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, has seen its revenue grow from $1.54 billion in 2018, the year before Mills took office, to $3.69 billion as of 2023,” he said.
“The governor’s sister, Dora Mills, joined MaineHealth as the ‘Chief Health Improvement Officer’ in late 2018, around the same time her sister was measuring the drapes at the Blaine House, and the confluence of jobs for the Mills sisters has coincided with remarkable growth in MaineHealth’s revenue,” Robinson added. “All a coincidence, I’m sure.”
How much has Gov. Mills herself profited in terms of political contributions? Not spectacularly, in terms of MaineHealth directly. The firm was the eighth-biggest source of donations to her 2022 re-election campaign, but that only amounted to less than $13,500 in a campaign that took in almost $4.2 million. The Maine Medical Center separately accounted for another $9800, though, coming in ninth while being reported separately from its MaineHealth parent for some reason. Had they been combined, MaineHealth would have come in sixth, and that's assuming that none of its other subsidiaries got reported separately.
When looking at contributions by industries, though, the effort to boost providers through policy seems a bit more significant. Hospitals and nursing homes came in sixth among contributors ($42,433), health professionals came in tenth ($27,144), and pharma came in 14th ($16,260). Perhaps aspirationally considering Mills' policies, law firms came in second with $179,526.
That may be a bit of poetic justice. Lawyers will certainly profit from Mills' policies now as the state fights to keep its federal funding while neutering its children and putting its female athletes at physical risk. At least we have a better idea why Mills is so invested in this fight -- it's because the trans industry has invested itself in the Mills sisters.
