Maine is moving forward on health care reform, and the Dirigo health program has been a key component of tackling the toughest challenge: providing quality, affordable health insurance to families and local small businesses. In the Bangor area alone, more than 100 small businesses are now able to offer insurance to their employees because of Dirigo. That kind of improvement in such a short time is remarkable.

Dirigo is more than just a health insurance plan, it’s about putting people first. It is still a work in progress, and we have much more to do to improve the program and secure it for the future. We need to strengthen the program, give Dirigo the bargaining power it needs to be competitive, and extend its quality low-cost health insurance to thousands more Mainers. One of the most important things we can do is enable Dirigo to stand on its own. Currently Dirigo’s health insurance is administered through a partnership with Anthem.

By the end of this year, the program’s contract with Anthem will be up for renewal. There is currently no way in the Dirigo law to change carriers, and if Anthem were to choose to end its collaboration with the state, people enrolled in DirigoChoice insurance plans may be left without future coverage.

This session, we have proposed legislation to allow the Dirigo board to put the contract out to bid again to ensure that Anthem is giving enrollees the most for their money, or to go with a self-insured plan. Going self-insured, an industry term, means that Dirigo could do what a lot of large employers in our state already do – contract out different parts of their health care coverage for the best rates, while maintaining quality insurance plans. And if the Dirigo board did decide to change carriers or go self-insured, this legislation would provide continuity in coverage for people in enrolled in DirigoChoice plans.

However, our bill doesn’t force the Dirigo board to make any change at all. If Anthem is the right choice for Dirigo coverage now, the contract would simply be renewed.

We don’t claim to be experts on insurance. But it’s just plain common sense that if something is not working, there needs to be a mechanism in place to fix it before it becomes unmanageable, especially when so many people are counting on it. If an insurance carrier, whether now or in the future, is not serving Maine people with the same intentions as those who created the program, then we need to have the flexibility to change carriers when a contract is up, or determine some other public plan or private-public partnership that can adequately facilitate the program.

The Dirigo Health Reform Act, which focuses on access to preventive care, is only the latest in a long line of innovative health care policies we’ve created to make our state healthier. We’ve received national commendations for our work on lowering prescription drug prices and reducing the rate of smoking in our state. Maine is the eighth healthiest state in the country, and one of only seven states in the nation that has seen a decrease in the rate of people without health insurance.

Maine people need and deserve quality affordable health care. A healthy population creates a healthy work force. We stand with Gov. Baldacci on access to quality, affordable health care as a matter of fairness.

Our bill, which is critical to the future of Dirigo health, has been through months of hearings and work sessions to get it right. We heard from the experts, brought stake holders together, and most of all, listened to people already enrolled in Dirigo to ensure that we knew how average people would be affected by any changes to the program.

Dirigo is working for Maine.

Sen. Bruce Bryant is chair of the Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Committee. Rep. Mark Bryant serves on the Judiciary Committee.