PORTLAND (AP) – Some health insurers say they’ll have to raise premiums because of a new state fee required to help pay for Gov. John Baldacci’s Dirigo health program.

Maine Insurance Superintendent Alessandro Iuppa ruled Saturday that Dirigo created health care savings of $43.7 million in its inaugural year, requiring insurers to make an annual savings offset payment that will be used to fund the Dirigo program.

The payment, or fee, is based on the premise that insurers will reap the benefits of voluntary spending caps by hospitals and other cost-control efforts associated with Dirigo.

But members of the insurance industry say they haven’t seen any savings and that the costs will simply be passed along to consumers in the form of higher premiums.

Cigna spokeswoman Lindsay Shearer said the fee would be on top of annual rate increases. Harvard Pilgrim said it, too, can’t absorb the fees. Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Maine has taken the same position in the past but declined comment Monday.

“It’s going to pave the way for increased health insurance costs in the state, which will result in some Maine people losing their health insurance,” said Cindy Shearer, spokeswoman for Cigna Corp.

Only Aetna said after Iuppa’s decision that it had not decided how to treat the fee.

Most of the proceeds from the fee will allow the state-sponsored DirigoChoice health insurance plan to provide subsidies to income-eligible participants. Other Dirigo Heath measures include voluntary caps on hospital spending, limits on hospital expansion and an expanded Medicaid program.

It is not clear by how much premiums might increase.

It will depend on how much of the $43.7 million the state decides to assess on paid claims, said Katherine Pelletreau, executive director of the trade group Maine Association of Health Plans.

That task is left up to the board of directors for the agency overseeing DirigoChoice, which is meeting Nov. 10.

The governor’s office met the insurers’ reaction with disappointment Monday.

Trish Riley, the governor’s health-policy director, said the insurance industry agreed to the intent of the fee outlined in the Dirigo Health law passed in 2003, and that the superintendent’s ruling only reinforces that it is the responsibility of the insurers to recover the savings.

“To pass costs onto consumers would be a breaking of faith in our agreement and the intent of the law,” Riley said.

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