A top Maine Republican took to the House floor Wednesday to explain how his “man’s brain” can’t get behind Obamacare’s federal funding for Medicaid expansion because he is concerned about costs. House Minority Leader Ken Fredette (R-ME) invoked the classic gender-stereotyping book, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus to explain how he is struggling to reconcile his rational male consideration of costs with Democrats’ apparently female desire for free things.

The Maine People’s Alliance flagged the sexist speech:

As I listen to the debate today and earlier debate on this bill, I can’t help but think of a title of a book, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. And it’s a book about the fact that men sort of think one way in their own brain, in their own world. And women think another way in their own brain and in their own world. And it really talks about the way that men and women can do a better job at communicating. Because if you listen to the debate today, in my mind — a man’s mind — I hear two fundamental issues. From the other side of the aisle, I hear the conversation being about: free. ‘This is free, we need to take it, and it’s free. And we need to do it now.’ And that’s the fundamental message that my brain receives. Now, my brain, being a man’s brain, sort of thinks differently, because I say, well, it’s not — if it’s free, is it really free? Because I say, in my brain, there’s a cost to this.

Watch it:

Fredette’s gendered argument apparently did not win over his fellow lawmakers, who passed Medicaid expansion today. Fredette’s “man’s brain” actually got the facts on Medicaid expansion wrong; as Maine People’s Alliance Health Care Organizer Jennie Pirkl noted, “Even the conservative Heritage Foundation admits that accepting federal health care funding will save the state $690 million over the next decade while providing health care coverage for 70,000 more Maine people.”

State Rep. Diane Russell (D-ME) was not amused by Fredette’s dismissal of her “woman’s brain,” remarking to ThinkProgress, “I thought it was 2013, not 1813. Apparently, I was wrong.”

Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) vetoed L.D. 272 on Thursday, a bill that would prohibit Mainers under the age of 18 from using indoor tanning salons in an effort to protect youth from skin cancer risk. In his veto message, the governor ridiculed the measure as “government run amok” that “tells parents that Augusta knows better than they do when it comes to their children.”

To explain his veto decision, LePage claimed that the bill would do nothing to “stop teenagers from lying in the sun or spending hours in privately owned tanning beds” in their homes. But arguing that a public health and safety initiative banning indoor tanning is toothless just because it doesn’t prevent private use is akin saying that tobacco and alcohol restrictions also serve no purpose, since kids can just sneak into personal stashes at home. And the kids who soak up natural rays from the sun are much less at risk for skin cancer than the kids who are exposed to the the highly concentrated UV rays in tanning beds, according to a 2010 American Association for Cancer Research study.

In fact, there is zero doubt in the scientific and medical communities that the use of tanning beds increases the risk for melanoma by exposing users to unhealthy levels of UV radiation. The Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) website has an entire section dedicated to debunking myths about indoor tanning safety, noting that tanning bed use is “particularly dangerous for younger users” as “people who begin tanning younger than age 35 have a 75% higher risk of melanoma.” Nevertheless, tanning salons often outright ignore U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) safety recommendations governing minors’ use of commercial tanning beds. A 2009 National Cancer Institute (NCI) investigative study found that less than 11 percent of tanning facilities followed FDA’s safety schedule limiting young people’s use of the beds to three times a week at most, and the vast majority would allow teens to use their facilities all seven days for the first week.

Back in 2006, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) concluded that “policymakers should consider enacting measures, such as prohibiting minors and discouraging young adults from using indoor tanning facilities, to protect the general population from possible additional risk for melanoma.” It should consequently come as no surprise that L.D. 272′s strongest proponents are doctors in Maine’s legislature. Sen. Geoffrey Gratwick (D), a physician, said of LePage’s veto, “There are times when science and medicine should supersede politics. This is one of those times.”

Vermont and California already have laws similar to L.D. 272 on the books, and just last week, Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) signed a bill banning minors under age 17 form using commercial tanning beds and children under age 14 from using spray tans in his state. Christie asserted that the bill was “important for protecting the safety of minors” in New Jersey.

In a sign of the GOP’s weakening knee-jerk opposition to Obamacare, Maine Governor Paul LePage may be the latest Republican who agrees to cooperate with health reform to extend coverage to 55,000 of his state’s uninsured residents. On Monday, LePage signaled for the first time he may expand Medicaid under the health care law.

According to the Portland Press Herald:

LePage signaled Monday that he’s open to participating in the federal health care law’s Medicaid expansion program, but will seek the “best deal for Mainers.” [...] Adrienne Bennett, LePage’s spokeswoman, said Monday that the administration will initiate discussions with the federal government over a Medicaid expansion. She said the governor will seek assurances that Maine is “getting a return on investment.”

Remember, LePage is the same vocal Obamacare critic who blasted the health law just a few months ago, saying, “Maine will not be complicit in the degradation of our nation’s premier health care system.” And the governor has historically favored contracting, not expanding, Maine’s Medicaid program. Thousands of Maine residents already lost their health coverage earlier this month because LePage dropped nearly 15,000 low-income residents from the Medicaid rolls — and he would have kicked more than twice that number off of the program if the Obama Administration hadn’t stopped him.

If LePage agrees to extend Medicaid coverage, he would join a surprising coalition of GOP governors in states like Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada.

GOP governors across the country are so resistant to implementing Obamacare, they’re unwilling to expand their Medicaid programs under the health reform law at the expense of the low-income residents in their states. And Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) actually wants to go even further — not only does he oppose expanding Medicaid to extend health care to additional poor Mainers, but he’s also seeking to contract the program to drop 37,000 low-income people who currently have Medicaid coverage.

But the Obama administration will prevent LePage from carrying out that plan. Federal officials rejected the governor’s proposal to drop coverage for nearly 15,000 parents with incomes that fall between the federal poverty level ($23,050 for a family of four) and 133 percent of the poverty level ($30,657 for a family of four), as well as an additional 6,000 19- and 20-year-olds whose incomes put them in that gap. Obamacare seeks to establish a new eligibility level for Medicaid at 133 percent of the poverty level, which will help eliminate the coverage gap that often prevents America’s working poor from being able to afford the health services they need.

Luckily for LePage and unluckily for Maine’s low-income residents, the governor will still be able to satisfy his desire to scale back his state’s Medicaid rolls to some extent. Maine used to extend coverage to low-income people whose incomes exceeded 133 percent of the poverty level, and the federal government acknowledged that Obamacare can’t stop LePage from dropping Maine’s Medicaid eligibility level down to that 133 percent threshold — a move that will purge about 20,000 Mainers from the Medicaid rolls at the beginning of March.

LePage has been open about his distaste for President Obama’s landmark health reform law, which seeks to ensure that over 30 million previously uninsured Americans have access to health care by 2014. Following Obama’s reelection, the governor asserted he wouldn’t “lift a finger” to meet impending deadlines to implement the Affordable Care Act because he believes the law represents “the degradation of our nation’s premier health care system.” The thousands of Maine residents set to lose their access to Medicaid coverage on March 1, however, may not share the same esteem for the United States’ current health care system.