Friday, May 4, 2007
Voters will have a chance next year to decide whether the state should adopt a single-payer health-care system if organizers of a new campaign can gather enough signatures to put the issue on the statewide ballot.
The group is being led by Jonathan Carter and Pat LaMarche, both of whom have run for governor as Green Independent candidates, and Chris Miller, who challenged Gov. John Baldacci in last year's Democratic primary.
To get the universal health-care question on the November 2008 ballot, organizers need to gather signatures from at least 55,000 voters.
"It's clear that we need this," Carter said during an event at Portland City Hall. "We need this for our citizens, and we need it for our businesses."
The effort to go directly to voters follows legislative reforms that have fallen short of making health care available to everyone.
In 2001, legislation authorized a comprehensive study of single-payer health care, but it went no further. Subsequent efforts to expand access to health insurance have failed to provide universal care.
"Once again, people want things in Maine that elected leaders cannot, for whatever reason, deliver," LaMarche said on Thursday.
It's unclear how the issue might fare at the ballot box, but polling in 2002 by Market Decisions of South Portland showed that 57 percent of Maine people favored a universal single-payer system. In a nonbinding referendum in November 2001, nearly 52 percent of Portland voters said they supported the concept.
However, there is a difference between supporting the idea of single-payer health care and supporting a specific proposal. On Thursday, the campaign's organizers didn't offer many specifics on how their plan would work.
Leaders of the signature drive said that they are seeking "publicly financed, privately delivered health care," comparing their initiative to the Canadian health-care system.
They said they are drafting language that will be sent to the Secretary of State's Office, which approves any ballot language that is sent to voters.
Andrew Coburn, director of the Institute for Health Policy at the University of Southern Maine's Muskie School of Public Service, said that any successful reform will have to address rising costs in the health-care system.
But whatever the specifics, he said that a referendum campaign will spur public discussion.
"I think it's very good and healthy that citizens have the opportunity to discuss these issues," Coburn said.
The single-payer referendum campaign comes nearly four years after Baldacci's Dirigo Health program was signed into law.
The governor's program, which seeks to expand the ranks of the insured, has yet to achieve its goal of providing health care to all Mainers.
"We're still moving in that direction. It's not something that happens overnight," said Baldacci's spokesman, David Farmer.
Asked about the ballot initiative, he responded, "We'll have to see what their particulars are, and whether they're reasonable, whether they're doable."
Organizers of the signature drive are seeking volunteers on their Web site, www.healthcareme.com.
One of the campaign's first volunteers was Steve Dunn, a political neophyte who lives in Bangor and said he does not have health insurance.
"When you're sick, you should be able to see a doctor," Dunn said. "I don't think anybody should be denied health care in this, the wealthiest country on Earth."
The campaign's leaders argued that a single-payer system would be good for many businesses, making Maine more competitive economically. But they also predicted that their proposal will face stiff opposition from the health insurance industry.
Mark Ishkanian, spokesman for the state's largest private insurer, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Maine, declined to comment. The company has said previously that a single-payer system is unrealistic without changes at the federal level.
Staff Writer Kevin Wack can be contacted at 791-6365 or at:
Questions/Comments
Reader comments
Sort by: Oldest first | Newest First
Give our nation either Universal health care, a Canadian type health care or give us something better than we effing have now!
No one deserves this kind of treatment. Sick.
www.whitenoiseinsanity.wordpress.comreport abuse
Another message from yet another Mainer who can't wait for universal SINGLE-PAYER health care.
Let's ask ourselves:
If adequate quality health care was suddenly available to everybody in America, who exactly would lose out?? Could it be that same somebody that's getting richer and richer right now?
Who is it that's benefiting from these SOARING health care costs?? Because surely somebody out there is definitely getting richer, while the rest of us are going either broke or bankrupt (the majority of bankruptcies are caused by health costs). And lots of us are GETTING SICKER.
Somebody is doing all they can to ensure we pay the highest possible costs to get the least possible returns.
Somebody wants to make sure health care is something that can be delayed, denied, or diminished for those who can't pay.
Somebody benefits from reserving access to health care for those who can pay the most.
Somebody out there is benefiting royally from this arrangement and they're desperate to keep it that way.
They'll do all they can to cover up and disguise the fact that the VAST MAJORITY of us are losing out big time.
They don't want us to understand why we pay so much more than any other nation on earth for health care.
They don't want us to understand that while we're paying the highest cost, 72 other countries are enjoying better health outcomes and 37 enjoy better health system performance - and for less money.
They don't want us to understand why here in the US we are paying more to get less, and to cover fewer people.
They don't want us to understand why the majority of us are paying more (and more), getting less (and less), and getting sicker (and sicker)... because they are getting richer and richer and richer.
Somebody out there is turning OUR SICKNESS into THEIR PROFITS.
Somebody out there is LITERALLY MAKING A KILLING AT THE EXPENSE OF OUR LIVES.
While rest of us ARE DYING FOR HEALTH CARE.report abuse
report abuse
Show all 35 comments
You must be a registered user of MaineToday.com to post a comment. Register or log in.