Maine residents with an interest in the future of the state’s health care system will want to mark their calendars and plan on attending one of seven upcoming public hearings being hosted by the Governor’s Office on Health Policy and Finance.

Participants will hear an overview of a new report released Thursday on regional differences in Mainers’ health and have an opportunity to voice their ideas for improving the availability of high-uality, affordable health care throughout the state.

“So much of this debate is happening in Augusta,” Trish Riley, director of the health office, said Thursday. “We feel it’s important to keep our eye on the target and hear what the people of Maine think are the most compelling issues.”

The seven “listening tour” hearings kick off in northern Maine next week with meetings in Brewer, Presque Isle and Calais. The following week, the public is invited to attend sessions in Lewiston, Augusta, Portland and Saco. No pre-registration is required and the events are free of charge. The cost of hosting the sessions is being paid by the Maine Health Access Foundation, formed with the proceeds of the 1999 sale of Maine’s nonprofit Blue Cross and Blue Shield programs to Anthem Insurance.

The public hearings are a follow-up to the state’s invitation-only “Tough Choices” workshops held last spring in Orono and Biddeford, at which a demographic sample of Maine citizens took part in focus groups. Both the Tough Choices sessions and the listening tour are efforts to gauge the public’s priorities as officials work to establish a statewide health plan, according to Riley.

She said the Tough Choices events revealed a “disconnect” between policymakers and the public. For example, she said, many Mainers don’t realize that most people without insurance are employed, or that Maine has one of the lowest rates of employer-sponsored health insurance in the nation.

The state health plan is a component of the 2003 Dirigo Health reforms introduced by Gov. John Baldacci shortly after he took office. The health plan lays out a blueprint for access to needed services in all areas of the state and must be revised every two years. The first plan was established in 2004. It is considered an interim document and is in effect for only one year. It will be revised later in 2005 and be in effect for a full two-year period.

To guide the development of the new plan, the state on Thursday released a report on the status of Mainers’ health. The report compares Maine to the rest of the nation on a variety of measures, including rates of specific diseases, surgical procedures, hospital complications, causes of death, nursing home admissions and infant mortality. It also compares access to specialty services such as dental care, mental health care and other services from region to region within Maine, as well as hospital pricing comparisons and other information.

At the Maine Heritage Policy Institute, executive director William Becker – a reliable critic of the DirigoChoice insurance plan and a proponent of free market solutions – derided the listening tour and the new report as a waste of time and money.

“There’s already been lots of talk, lots of studies and blue ribbon commissions,” Becker said Thursday. “The question is, where are the results?” Becker called the DirigoChoice insurance program, currently the subject of an intense funding debate in Augusta, “a cataclysmic failure,” and said there is little to gain by looking to the public for answers to problems as complicated as the health care crisis.

“Democracy is a great thing, and people’s voices should be heard,” Becker said. “But our voices are heard at the ballot box. We elect our public officials to solve problems, improve the quality of life and make our government more efficient. … We’re not going to find the answers in a listening tour.”