Baldacci touts Dirigo at Mass. health forum

BOSTON – Maine Gov. John Baldacci touted his state’s universal health care access program Tuesday at a forum in Massachusetts, which is looking at ways to overhaul its health care system and expand coverage to all of its residents.

Baldacci was a featured speaker at a Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation forum at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston. Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney also attended the event, billed as Roadmap to Coverage: Lessons and Choices.

Baldacci acknowledged that health reform is not easy. “If it were,” he said, “we wouldn’t be having this discussion today.”

The Maine governor described his state’s Dirigo Health program as a public-private partnership that “requires all Maine people and institutions to be engaged in creating solutions.”

In 2003, the Maine Legislature enacted Baldacci’s plan to create Dirigo Health with hopes of providing access to health care coverage to more than 130,000 Mainers who lacked it. Coverage is offered through Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Maine.

Amid criticism by legislative Republicans that the program’s enrollment has lagged behind expectations, Baldacci announced last month that eligibility standards were being expanded to add thousands of families to the nearly 6,400 families and businesses already enrolled in the program.

Last week, the Legislature rejected attempts to curtail Dirigo as it enacted a law to switch the program’s funding source from $53 million in startup money to a combination of premiums, “savings offset” payments and federal matching funds that are aimed at making the program self-sustaining.

Savings offsets, a key component of Dirigo’s funding, are based on cost savings realized through cost controls on health care services. The law enacted last week changes how the savings offsets are collected from assessments on premium revenues to assessments on paid claims.

Joseph Ditre, executive director of Consumers for Affordable Health Care, said the final legislation included concessions as well as gains for his side as well as the insurance industry and other business interests.

“As consumers, who are the end-payers of all health care costs, we’re not jumping up and down for joy,” Ditre said. “We did what we needed to do to get this nationally acclaimed program to its next phase.”