FARMINGTON – Health care reform advocates and Western Mountain Alliance members gathered Friday for a legislative caucus aimed at promoting the DirigoHealth Reform Act.
Speaking at the University of Maine at Farmington, Trish Reilly, director of Governor Baldacci’s Office of Health Policy and Finance, stressed that the state health care plan is a public/private partnership.
She pointed out that more than 131,000 people in Maine go without health insurance.
“This is a partnership for us to redesign and get our hands around the health care problem,” she said.
DirigoHealth is a set of initiatives to ensure all Maine people have access to health care by 2009.
The program works to contain costs, ensure high quality health care and increase access for Maine’s working people. It also aids families through DirigoChoice, health care coverage for Maine businesses with 50 or less employees, self-employed people and individuals. Enrollees gets discounts on premiums and reductions in deductibles based on their income and family size.
Richard Batt, president of Franklin County Health Network, also spoke to the crowd of more than 30 people.
Having spent the past 11 years working with the Franklin County Health Network and Franklin Memorial Hospital, he spoke about the quality of health care throughout the state and its high cost. A new collaboration between the public, the professional sector, government, business and insurers is the answer to the woes in the health care market, he said.
“We support concepts of consolidation via collaboration, technology development, broadening access for everyone, and community health, Batt said.
Batt admitted that the issue of health economics is a complicated one, but he also assured that with the recent addition of DirigoHealth, the future looks promising.
“The health status of Maine is OK, but not great,” Batt said. “I can happily report that it is highest right here in Franklin County.”
Comments are no longer available on this story