HAMPDEN – Noting the similarities between Maine and her own state, former New Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen urged Mainers on Monday to head in the right direction by voting for U.S. Sen. John Kerry in November.

Shaheen, the former three-term governor and first woman elected to that post, visited seniors in Portland and Hampden, telling reporters outside one of the retirement homes in Hampden’s Avalon Village that President George Bush’s health care plan is “going in the wrong direction.”

The national chairwoman for the Kerry-Edwards 2004 campaign, Shaheen said that under the Bush health care plan, Medicare costs will increase 17.4 percent next year, the biggest increase in Medicare history.

The way the announcement of the increase was made – one day after Bush’s acceptance speech – was “particularly unfortunate,” because it was lost in the coverage of the Republican convention, Shaheen said.

“The impact that it’s going to have on seniors is very unfortunate,” she said about the increase.

In Maine, that will mean an increase of nearly $30 million next year to seniors and people with disabilities, according to an official for the Kerry-Edwards campaign.

In some ways, Maine and New Hampshire share the same fate under Bush’s health care policy, Shaheen said. Rural states, such as the two neighboring states, are hard-pressed to attract doctors to provide health care under Medicare because Medicare doesn’t reimburse rural areas as it does urban ones, she noted.

And both states have turned to Canada for lower drug costs, because across the border, prescription drugs don’t bear the burden of research and development and advertising costs like they do here in the United States and there is universal health care in Canada, the former governor said.

Such border crossings to re-import drugs, however, are illegal under the current administration. Removing the restriction could drop costs to senior citizens by 30 to 50 percent, she said.

Before Shaheen’s appearance, a group of three or four Bush supporters stood outside the home where the governor was scheduled to speak, wearing buttons and campaign attire to show their support.

One of those supporters, Ronald Wilcox, 65, a self-employed machinist from Corinth, said he’s had a stroke, heart surgery and two surgeries for internal bleeding, but he still works part time and insists he’s not looking for anyone to take care of him.

He said costs for health care are so high because of too much involvement by the government, which is giving the health care system a free ride.

“There’s no limit to what [the health care industry] can charge,” Wilcox said.

Instead of looking to Canada, Wilcox said he thought the solution to high health care costs is closer to home and involves giving capitalism a chance to work. When the government is such a large stakeholder in something, such as health care, usually there is no competition, he said.

“And being self-employed for 40 some years, I can tell you, competition is what keeps prices low,” he said.