The Democratic agenda

Health insurance costs in Maine are outrageous. The Legislature can easily remedy this, but the Democrat majority, for reasons that defy common sense, won’t enact relief, which has been done in about 40 other states. Instead, they continue the rules that produce greater costs with no competition.
They continue the expensive and failed Dirigo program and expand welfare programs, but are behind in paying the hospitals.
They have attempted to control facility costs with a very oppressive certificate-of-need program that has not worked.
We could suspect something when their majority judgment was to sell the nonprofit Blue Cross-Blue Shield program to a for-profit company, Anthem, whose president receives bonuses in the millions. And we wonder why the cost of insurance is increasing rapidly.
What this all leads up to is the Democrats’ goal of a socialized welfare state.
The pieces begin to fall into place — the maintenance of discouraging, high-cost health insurance, the refusal to abandon the failed Dirigo, the prohibitive atmosphere for a competitive insurance market, and an oppressive regulatory climate for facilities.
How do other states manage without all of those factors? Quite well, thank you, at a much lower cost.
Maine voters should pay attention to what these politicians do, not what they say.
I wonder why the Democrats are re-elected to office repeatedly after what they have done to this state. The people deserve better.
Thomas F. Shields, Auburn