Senate nixes single-payer health bill After losing in 17-15 vote, sponsor amends measure to seek more support

AUGUSTA – A single-payer health care bill that was defeated in the Senate on Wednesday night may face a warmer reception next week when it is resubmitted with a new cost-savings amendment.

Rep. Paul Volenik, the Brooklin Democrat sponsoring the bill, said Thursday his amendment to LD 1277 should appeal to some senators who defeated the measure Wednesday in a close 17-15 vote. Volenik plans to include new language that would identify savings achieved by state facilities and hospitals under a single-payer health plan. The amendment also would delay implementation of the plan for a year and create a study committee to evaluate those findings for a final recommendation to the Legislature.

“The Legislature then votes it up or down or sends it back to the committee for review and has the final rights of approval over it,” Volenik said. “That puts an extra step in there and brings it back to legislative control. That might be enough to bring enough people who were opposing it for passage.”

Three Republican senators were absent Wednesday when the 8 p.m. vote was taken. The remaining GOP Senate caucus united to oppose the bill and were joined by three Democrats. The Senate vote now places the bill at odds with the House, which voted 80-53 last month to approve the measure that carries an annual fiscal note of $3.4 billion.

That’s less than the $4.7 billion spent on health care in Maine each year, a figure Volenik cited from a recent blue-ribbon report. Proponents of Volenik’s bill maintain that the current insurance system excludes 13 percent of the state’s population. Under a single-payer system, Volenik said everyone in Maine would be covered while eliminating the $400 million in profits insurance companies receive each year under the current health care system.

Backers of the bill claim universal health care coverage would stimulate the business sector because employers no longer would have to factor insurance into their fixed costs. But opponents counter that the first-in-the-nation policy would attract the nation’s poor and sick to Maine. They also argue that the state cannot afford a single-payer system that proponents claim could be paid through taxes or premiums shared by all taxpayers. Volenik’s bill would create a study panel to evaluate the best approaches to funding the plan.

A bill offered to underwrite the single-payer plan was roundly rejected by the House last month. The proposal would have raised $3.4 billion by creating a 6 percent tax on goods and services that currently are exempt from taxation and raising the state’s sales tax on currently taxed goods from 5 percent to 11 percent.

Meanwhile, Gov. Angus King continued to staunchly oppose Volenik’s bill, which he described Wednesday as little more than a “simple answer to a complex problem,” and the wrong approach to addressing the state’s health care problems. The bill, he said, simply would require that current health care costs be paid in a different way.

“To some extent, there’s an idea out there that this would make it free and it wouldn’t,” King said. “It would have impacts that we can’t calculate but we certainly can’t buy into a proposal unless the question of who pays and how will it be paid is answered. That would be jumping off the cliff without any idea of what’s at the bottom.”

But Volenik remained hopeful that once King has an opportunity to review the new amendment, he will reconsider his position on the single-payer plan.

“As he becomes aware of it and how much a lot of businesses need this kind of change, he may be willing to relent,” Volenik said.