ObamaCare looks & smells like Dirigo Health

Dirigo has not met 3% of its goal of covering ALL 128,000 uninsured Mainers by 2009.

Dirigo has blown through $155 MILLION in tax dollars... and the Governor just rammed through MORE taxes to fund this disaster! The most ironic part of the latest taxes are that they are on health claims paid... which will INCREASE costs on health insurance to fund a programs designed to DECREASE cost on health insurance.

Only Liberal Democrats think like this!

And the Obama folks are looking to MAINE, and want to copy the "success" of Maine's "Public Option" called Dirigo... and take it coast-to-coast.

How stupid is this?

Future headline:

Obama Appoints John Baldacci Former Maine Gov, To Head The New Healthcare Program The People Demanded

Subtitle: Baldacci's Highly Successful Dirigo Program Makes Him Uniquely Qualified.

Mark ,I keep e-mailing and calling Snowejob and Collins ...... and encourage others to do the same.

If you don't believe Government should control our healthcare,
I hope you'll consider signing this petition at http://www.freeourhealthcarenow.com

Needless to say, I also hope you'll share this URL with your friends and family.

Thank you for considering this important issue.

MT

Everything thing smells bad to Mark.

If the Republicans were organized enough, or maybe smart enough, they would do a quick rebuttal to a scurrilous radio ad currently being aired by a sleazy Democratic front group. The ad lays all the blame for the delay in producing new healthcare legislation on the GOP.

The ad never mentions that both the House and Senate are under complete Democratic control and the Dems could pass anything they want. The real reason for the delay in that a large number of the more thoughtful Democratic lawmakers feel that the bill, as presented, is lousy legislation.

But, of course, the ad shys away from that. It's a terribly misleading but is so simply stated that it could influence the less thoughtful among the electorate. It cries out to be corrected, but will the Republicans rise to the occasion? I wouldn't bet on it.

Unionman, are you ready to give up your Cadillac insurance plan for Obama's Yugo plan?

This was a comment on the PPH Website today, on the health care debate.

It says it all:

Joseph of ME
Jul 28, 2009 10:18 AM

It's odd that those even to the left of Obama, who want a "free" Canadian-style "single payer" system keep insisting that's it's NOT socialized medicine...

...Yet their most passion-filled arguments are reserved for railing against anybody who earns a dime more than they do!

The class warfare argument is still warfare; plus, it's a loser!

You cannot make poor people richer by making rich people poorer - and even though it's been tried for centuries... these folks can't give it up.

The Bottom Line ------->

WHY are you losers so upset that some people earn more money, and have more money, and spend more money and enjoy the things they are able to do with more money?

If you socialists would only work harder, lose the "I'm-a-victim" loser attitude, and spend a bit less of your earnings on dope, body piercings, skate boards and tattoos...

Maybe (just maybe) you can make something of yourselves!

From over the email transom, an interesting production from the ACLU--hardly a right-wing, naysaying organization. This is good.

http://aclu.org/pizza/images/screen.swf

ObamaCare does indeed resemble our failed Dirigo program. I am looking for quotes of promises from back in 2003,2004,2005 about what Dirigo would do. I have searched but have not found the best ones. If anyone has access to some of those really great ones - the big, bold promises and especially the one from Trish that said Dirigo is a step towards single payer, please send to me - much appreciated!

Dirigo, MassCare, TennCare - all promised big savings by insuring more people and thus eliminating a lot of cost-shifting. All promised big savings by promoting quality care and preventive medicine.

All have seen costs rise in response to their initiatives.
All have seen budgets busted.

All say, the answers lie in Washington.
If only we implement these "reforms" on a national scale, we'll finally see the promised cost savings.

There is no evidence to support that view.

Sounds a lot like the standard socialist refrain that "The only reason socialism has always failed the people is that the right leaders haven't been in charge yet".

Health care reform — Maine has been there, done that

Jonathan McKane

Here in Maine, we’ve heard this health care “reform” hype before: “We are going to insure the uninsured.” “It will be a self-sustaining program.” “It will bring competition to the health insurance market.” And on and on - Grand promises about big government experiments in health care. Maine has been a Petri dish for such experiments and from the taxpayers’ and the health insurance premium payer’s point of view, the experiments have failed. Now we are hearing the same promises at the national level.

Message to Congress – Been there, done that. Please take a long look at Maine before you make the same mistakes we have made.

First, a little background - Maine has one of the most –if not the most – over-regulated health insurance markets in the country. Because of our extraordinarily burdensome regulations Maine has essentially one insurer left in the individual health insurance market - Anthem. This de facto monopoly means we pay some of the highest premiums in the country.

To remedy this - instead of relaxing regulations and giving the free market a chance to recuperate through real market reform - the thought was to get the government more involved – To solve a problem that the government created! One idea was to bring competition to our monopoly carrier, Anthem with Maine’s “government option,” Dirigo Choice. Oddly enough, Anthem was the insurance company that administered Dirigo Choice for the first 3 years. How’s that for competition?

The funding for the Dirigo Program was through a complex plan called the Savings Offset Payment or SOP. The SOP determined through a formula exactly how much money Dirigo saved the health care/health insurance system of Maine and then would tax insurers that amount. If it sounds impossible, it was. The formula showed that Dirigo was saving money all around the country. In the end the SOP always resulted in enough to keep Dirigo afloat and to keep paying the 6 figure salaries of Dirigo administrators.

Although these taxes on health insurance have indeed made premium rates rise, it was believed that the more people we enrolled in Dirigo the more money we would save. We are seeing the same twisted logic at the national level.

Needless to say, Dirigo Choice hasn’t worked out as planned. It has failed to come even close to its goals. The Maine people have spent hundreds of millions on this program to date and we don’t have even one tenth of the promised number insured and our health insurance premiums in both the individual and group markets have risen to some of the highest in the country.

Nationally, we’ve heard about the need for a public - or government - option. On the nightly news recently, I heard that the Obama administration is quite confident that this public option plan will pay for itself “if anticipated savings to the system are realized.” Sound familiar?

We’ve also heard that this public option will bring more competition to insurers. Yeah, we heard that, too – it doesn’t.

And we are told that insurers will no longer be able to deny coverage for a pre-existing condition. Dirigo Choice has no pre-existing exclusion clause - so enrollees could simply wait until they got sick to sign up. Why bother to pay thousands in premiums each year if you don’t need to pay until you need health care? The predictable result for Dirigo was adverse selection – their pool of insured was unhealthy and therefore very expensive to cover.

Also, this new public plan is going to expand Medicaid far beyond its original scope. Yup, we did that here in Maine – and it has helped bust our state budget and weaken our state economy.

And don’t forget guaranteed issue and community rating. Nothing has hurt Maine’s insurance market more that these two mandates. The Obama plan hopes to impose them on the whole country.

Why should we expect different results if Washington imposes a Maine-like plan on a much grander scale? We shouldn’t. Because we’ve been there, we’ve done that. We have shown the country exactly what not to do.

Our big-government experiments in health care in Maine have failed miserably. Left-wing cheerleaders like Maine Center for Economic Policy and Consumers for Affordable Health Care,however, will attempt to paint the truth to claim Dirigo and the heavy handed regulations (now called reforms) have worked. Those of us who have lived under this oppressive healthcare regime in Maine know better.

State Representative Jonathan McKane is serving in his third term in the Maine Legislature.

http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/116622.html

Well said John, I have mentioned this in my e-mails to our congress critters but it seems to fall on deaf ears.

The refusal of the congress to look at the failure of state run programs like Dirgo is disturbing enough.I guess if you just lie about it often enough it becomes the truth.
Just being my pessimistic self, I see obamcare rammed through by the liberal majority, it costing hundreds of billions more each year than they even suspect, delivering mediocre care at a premium cost and all the while telling the taxpayer what a success it is..... wheeling out a few mouth breathers to claim that Obamacare saved their lives... meanwhile the president elect for life is telling the us that his administration has created economic growth through the expotential expansion of government jobs............... and all is well with the world. Meanwhile in Korea, Iran,Iraq,Afaganistan, Venezuela,the Mexican border........................Thank God we'll at least solve global climate through the self mutilation of cap and trade . Got to go to work........

wsj.com
* REVIEW & OUTLOOK
* AUGUST 21, 2009

No Maine Miracle Cure
Another state 'public option' that failed.

Want a preview of ObamaCare in action? In 2003, [Maine]...enacted its own...universal health care. Democratic Governor Baldacci signed the plan into law with...promises. By 2009, it would cover all of Maine's approximately 128,000 uninsured...

Instead of 128,000...today, the...number is...3,400. Despite...giant expansions in Maine's Medicaid program and the...subsidized public choice option, the number of [Maine] uninsured...today is...slightly lower than...when the program began.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020461900457432240181650118...

SKF- great article-