AUGUSTA (AP) – Gov. John Baldacci mixed presidential politics with the topic of health care in his weekly radio address. Baldacci noted that at least three presidential candidates have presented plans to provide universal health coverage for Americans. The latest plan was offered last week by Sen. Hillary Clinton. She joins fellow Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and former Sen. John Edwards in doing so.
The Maine governor also noted that his GOP counterpart in California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, now a Republican presidential aspirant, also took steps to establish universal health care in their states.
A lot has happened on the country’s health care front since Maine established its Dirigo Health program, a first step toward universal coverage, in 2003, Baldacci said.
“According to the latest numbers from the U.S. Census, Maine is tied for first in the nation for making sure our people have health care coverage,” the governor said. Dirigo “isn’t perfect, and it surely attracted its share of detractors, many of them motivated by little more than ideological zeal.”
But Baldacci, pointing to recent changes in which a new insurer will administer the program, called Dirigo “a modest success” that holds promise for savings in health care spending and expanding access.
“There will come a day in this country when every man, woman and child has access to good health care,” Baldacci said. “It won’t be easy and it won’t be cheap.”
In the Republican response, state Senate Minority Leader Carol Weston of Montville said health care costs in Maine are growing too fast. In the past 13 years, she said, personal health care costs have increased in Maine at an average of almost 8 percent a year, “the largest increase seen throughout the United States.”
Despite the Dirigo subsidies to eligible Mainers, more people are uninsured and health insurance costs continue to rise, Weston said.
Attempts to improve the program during the past legislative session failed after Republicans balked at reforms that would have raised taxes, she said.
“The only way Mainers are going to see real savings in their health insurance is to demand it,” said Weston. “We recognize the problem, we have the answers, all that remains is the political will to do the right thing.”
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