The Legislature will soon take up one of the most significant problems facing the people of Maine – our health insurance affordability crisis. Maine has the second-highest insurance costs in the country; only New Jersey is worse. For many working families, monthly premiums exceed their mortgage payments. Now the damage is mounting. More people are dropping coverage, more employers are stressed to provide insurance, and property taxes keep rising as insurance costs for teachers and municipal employees increase substantially every year. Insurance has become a backbreaking expense, and the path we’re on is not sustainable.

There’s no good reason for Maine to tolerate this situation any longer. We know precisely why our insurance costs are so wildly out of whack with the rest of the country. The major culprit is a set of “reforms” dating back to the early 1990s, when the state implemented two mandates that have proved ruinous – guaranteed issue and community rating. Together, they ended up wrecking the insurance market, driving nearly all carriers out of the state and driving prices straight up.

As a result of these mandates, people in other states pay one-third or one-half as much as Mainers pay for the same level of coverage, often from the same company.

What we need is common-sense legislation to begin repairing the damage. Unfortunately, the Legislature’s track record is not encouraging. In the last session, a number of bills were presented to alleviate this crisis. Virtually all of them went down to defeat on partisan votes, which was a real shame. Had they passed, we’d be on the road to recovery by now.

This time around, however, the situation has deteriorated to the point where legislators on all sides may finally take action. Failure to act would impose a greater hardship on working families, who already are struggling with high heating oil costs, not to mention Maine’s highest-in-the-nation tax burden. Failure to act would continue to discourage economic development and job creation. Failure to act would ensure that more Mainers are forced to live without the important safeguard of health insurance. In short, failure to act is unacceptable.

In hopes of moving toward a solution, I have introduced LD 912, An Act to Return Affordable Health Insurance to the State. The bill has attracted co-sponsors from both parties, so I am hopeful that we’ll finally get the job done.

Majority party Democrats will need to work with their Republican colleagues to accomplish this task. We need to look at how 48 other states provide affordable insurance. We also need to protect access for those who may be priced out of the market due to continuing health problems and chronic illness. I am not an insurance expert, but I know enough to look around and see what works elsewhere.

For insurance purposes, there are three major groups in Maine. Group one consists of those who are young, relatively young and generally healthy. These are the people who have fled the insurance rolls because of high costs and who would pay one-half to one-third of Maine premiums if they lived almost anywhere other than New Jersey. We need these folks back. Their return would expand the risk pool, which would lower costs for all, properly spread risk, and help pay for groups two and three.

Group two includes those who could not afford standard insurance because of major illness or chronic disease. These folks could be covered through a high-risk or reinsurance pool. Group three consists of those who cannot afford insurance in either groups one and two. A small policy surcharge on a markedly enlarged insurance market could help subsidize their premiums.

My bill would re-open the insurance market. Only five states out of 50 have a community rating law, which makes insurance expensive for all. My bill would repeal this. It would also establish a risk pool, similar to the program found in 33 other states, which would allow people with chronic illness to keep their policy at an affordable price. It’s not right that a healthy 50-year-old individual in Maine pays twice as much for health insurance as a 50-year-old with a chronic illness in North Dakota.

My legislation also requires that the Department of Professional and Financial Regulation’s Bureau of Insurance apply for federal funds that Congress is offering to states to create high-risk insurance pools. Incidentally, high-risk pool legislation passed Congress unanimously. This is not a partisan political issue anywhere other than Maine.

Legislators need to exhibit flexible thinking. I challenge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle not to retreat into familiar ideological trenches, where such terms as consumer protection, CEO bonuses and profit margins are tossed out like bombs to destroy substantive debate about real issues and remedies. Our goal is to allow Mainers and employers to once again purchase affordable health insurance.

Spring is about a month away. Let’s all hope the new season will spur a fresh approach and new thinking in addressing the current devastating predicament of unaffordable and scarce health insurance in our great state.

Bob Walker, M.D., is a practicing physician who is the Republican representative of Maine House of Representatives District 44, which includes Islesboro, Liberty, Lincolnville, Morrill, Searsmont, Hope and Appleton.