Anthem Inc.’s Wednesday announcement that its first-quarter earnings jumped 54 percent over last year drew sharp criticism Thursday from Joseph Ditre, executive director of Maine’s Consumers for Affordable Health Care.

“These profits are huge compared to other large corporations,” Ditre said. “State regulators need to be looking into this issue more carefully.”

Ditre said health care wasn’t a commodity, it was an essential human need and that companies shouldn’t make large profits from providing the service.

Anthem said the increase was due in part to an increase in subscribers, but Ditre said the company wrote 98 percent of the large-deductible policies in Maine and, he said, they are likely big moneymakers for the insurer. With these policies, the monthly payment is relatively small, but the annual deductibles range from $5,000 to $15,000. “A lot of people never get to the first dollar of coverage,” Ditre said.

Alessandro Iuppa, Maine’s Superintendent of Insurance, replied to Ditre’s charges by saying that insurance companies need to have good operating income or they’re “not long for this world.”

“They need resources to pay claims,” Iuppa said.

He also said that when Anthem purchased Maine Blue Cross-Blue Shield, the agreement was such that, before they shipped money out of state for profits, they had to get permission from the Bureau of Insurance. They haven’t done that, he said.