AUGUSTA – A Senate majority, over pronounced Republican opposition, confirmed Gov. John Baldacci’s five nominees Thursday for the board of directors of Maine’s fledgling Dirigo Health program.

The nominations were not imperiled, since it would have taken a two-thirds majority to reject any of the governor’s choices for appointment.

There was no debate, but afterward the assistant Republican Senate leader, Chandler Woodcock of Farmington, expressed unhappiness with what he described as a lack of balance on Baldacci’s roster of Dirigo Health overseers.

Charging that the nominees as a whole were politically slanted, Woodcock said he was “truly disappointed to read the list.”

Confirmed to serve on the Dirigo Health board were Mary Henderson of Maine Equal Justice, Dana Connors of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, Carl Leinonen of the Maine State Employees Association, Charlene Rydell, a policy adviser to U.S. Rep. Tom Allen, and Dr. Robert McAfee, a former president of the American Medical Association. McAfee was nominated as chairman.

Committee hearings produced only modest opposition to some of the nominees before Thursday’s Senate voting.

“A slate to be proud of,” said Democratic Sen. Neria Douglass of Auburn, who served on the Insurance and Financial Services Committee that reviewed the nominations. One Republican who parted ways with his colleagues by supporting Baldacci’s nominees, Arthur Mayo of Bath, called the nominees “broad-based.”

“I guess I would have to say in all honesty I am embarrassed by the action of my caucus,” Mayo said.

The Dirigo Health program aims to expand access to affordable insurance coverage by 2009 to all Mainers and to lower health care costs through voluntary pricing caps. The board will set policy guidelines for the implementation and operation of the new health care system, hire an executive director and establish a benefits package to be offered by participating insurance carriers.

Additionally, the board will establish an alternative plan for providing insurance in the event that private carriers are unavailable.

Ex-officio nonvoting members will include two members of Baldacci’s Cabinet – professional and financial regulation chief Robert Murray and finance commissioner Rebecca Wyke – and Trish Riley, director of the Governor’s Office of Health Policy and Finance.

Riley called the Republican opposition to the nominees a surprise. Baldacci spokesman Lee Umphrey said the five had not been chosen for political reasons.

Rydell worked with the Baldacci administration in the development of the Dirigo Health plan and Leinonen, Henderson and Connors were all active in the debate about it.