Some lawmakers are complaining of rampant misrepresentations about Dirigo Health, the state’s subsidized health insurance plan. Reality about Dirigo, they claim, is distorted by partisan spin and lobbyist half-truths.

You know what? They’re right.

Straight talk about Dirigo is long overdue. Emphasis on stable funding has prevented discussion about whether Dirigo is worth the funding taxpayers and legislators have afforded it.

Funding efforts, so far, have bought time. Tax increases on beer, wine and soda, plus private insurance claims are short-term, duct-tape fixes, not fiscal sustainability. (Not to mention wholly unpopular.)

Worse, these hikes violated a founding principle of Dirigo: not raising taxes to pay for it.

But putting Dirigo under the public microscope could jeopardize the approximately 13,000 people it covers. This is the catch: Dirigo has defied cold assessments, because of its definitive, dire human impact and laudable goals.

This fear and promise keeps lawmakers scrambling for solutions, like the tax hikes.

Deep disagreement exists, along partisan lines, about the last-minute nature of these increases, which materialized seemingly out of nowhere inside LD 2247 after cigarette taxes were scrapped.

Proponents say they resurrected an old solution to a difficult problem.

Critics say this was done under the cloak of darkness, before anybody had the chance to comment or object.

You know what? They’re both right. But it’s time to move on.

Perhaps a people’s veto will overturn the tax increases, or perhaps one won’t. This cannot stop the comprehensive examination of Dirigo’s costs and benefits that must desperately occur, either way.

When Dirigo was introduced, Maine’s health care spending, per-capita, was eleventh highest in the nation.

Now, The Associated Press reported in April, Maine has risen to second highest.

The state’s Bureau of Insurance calculates total Dirigo savings at $111 million, but new figures show the state has paid more than $100 million into Dirigo as subsidy.

Meanwhile, Maine health care is a cost meteor.

In a recent study, the Robert Wood Johnson foundation determined Maine families had their health insurance costs increase 27 percent from 2001 to 2005, as household incomes rose an average of 9.5 percent.

And from 1998 to 2005, $1.2 billion of new health care spending – some 37 percent – in Maine stemmed from chronic illnesses, according to the AP.

Maine is succeeding in covering the uninsured, and boasts one of the lowest uninsured rates in America.

But this gain is occurring in an environment of runaway costs, largely driven by serious maladies, like cancer, diabetes and lung disease, the costs of which are beyond mere insurance to control.

Eventually, we must confront the question of whether Dirigo, despite its gains, is working in this environment.

No more bickering over who spreads more misinformation – time to address the truth.