Candidate has plan for health care Republican says he would suspend DirigoChoice

BANGOR – Gubernatorial candidate Chandler Woodcock visited Bangor on Friday to talk about his vision for reforming Maine’s health care system. The Farmington Republican, now serving his third term in the Maine Senate, is among several GOP candidates who will vie for voter endorsement in the party’s primary elections in June.

Woodcock spoke to a handful of journalists and a few curious bystanders at a morning press conference at Bangor’s Grotto Cascade Park, with Eastern Maine Medical Center forming an apt backdrop.

Woodcock said the changes he would make if elected to the Blaine House in November would eliminate “broad statistics and one-size-fits-all” approaches that fail to recognize the needs of individuals and local communities. He criticized the current administration of Gov. John Baldacci for “demonizing” hospitals and insurance companies and for failing to pay its Medicaid bills on time. And, he said, the administration has had enough time to tinker with the controversial DirigoChoice insurance product and that the plan should be “suspended.”

Woodcock laid out his six-point approach to improving Maine’s health care environment:

. Make the Maine health insurance market more competitive and better able to meet the diverse needs of Maine citizens by decreasing regulations and state mandates.

. Stop taxing health insurance to fund government programs – a reference to the so-called “savings offset payment” the state is trying to collect from insurers in order to fund DirigoChoice subsidies.

. Promote wellness and healthier lifestyle choices by providing financial incentives to individuals who reduce health risks and rewarding employers who provide workplace wellness programs.

. Reform MaineCare, the state’s Medicaid program, by narrowing eligibility guidelines and providing better benefits to those Mainers who are eligible.

. Make good on more than $300 million in past-due MaineCare payments owed to Maine hospitals and ensure the future efficiency of the dysfunctional MaineCare billing system. “We would not allow a private insurance company to not pay claims, and we must not tolerate Medicaid doing the same,” Woodcock said.

. Build a stronger statewide public health system that emphasizes disease education and prevention as well as building disaster preparedness.

He said he supports medical liability reform as a way to make Maine a more attractive place for physicians and other providers to practice.

Woodcock, a retired high school English teacher and lifelong resident of Farmington, said it’s time to have a “regular person” in the governor’s office. If elected, he said, he would appoint highly qualified advisers and Cabinet members to help guide the state through the increasingly complex world of public policy.

Woodcock is the second of Maine’s three Republican candidates for governor to publicly outline a position on improving health care. Sen. Peter Mills, R-Skowhegan, recently proposed significant changes to DirgoChoice.

Mills said the “tiny, ineffectual plan” should be overhauled to ensure it reaches the low-income uninsured Mainers it was designed to serve. He called for revising the program’s funding source to eliminate the savings offset payment and advocated for limiting enrollment by requiring an asset test.

On his campaign Web site, former U.S. Rep. David Emery of Rockland has characterized DirigoChoice as “an expensive failure” and promotes free-market competition as the key to making health care coverage more affordable.

Learn more about these candidates online at www.woodcockforgovernor.com, www.millsforgovernor.com, and www.emeryforgovernor.com