Fix Health Care Policy

Maine’s new market-based health care reform is bringing insurance premiums down by as much as 60 percent in the individual market.

Elected in 2010, Governor Paul LePage (R) made health reform a top priority and signed Maine’s new reform into law in May 2011. Shortly thereafter, he stated, “I believe that common sense, personal experience, and our nation’s collective experience show that the private sector is superior to the government sector. It is time that we reverse course, create a more competitive marketplace, and make a healthier health care market.” After just one year of implementation, building reform around those principles has proved successful.

But Maine’s reform success comes after years of ever-increasing premiums and damaging reforms. In 1993, the state legislature enacted a law with components that were similar to provisions currently in Obamacare, such as community rating and guaranteed issue. These regulations caused the number of people insured in Maine’s individual market to drop by 44 percent from 1993 to 2009.

(Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: free market reforms, Gov. Paul LePage, health reform, insurance marketplace, Maine

Maine is one of the noteworthy states that worked on state health care reform in the spring legislative session. For years, Maine has suffered under poor health policy—leading to fewer insured, skyrocketing premiums, and few coverage choices. Last week, Governor Paul LePage (R) spoke to an audience at The Heritage Foundation about the need for state innovation and free-market solutions instead of a federal government takeover of the health care system. In his comments, Governor LePage pointed out that the diversity of states is a critical consideration in health care reform.

Reinforcing the Governor’s view, a recent Rasmussen poll shows that “56% of likely U.S. voters say letting states compete to determine the most effective standards and guidelines would do more to reduce health care costs than having the federal government involved.” Additionally, the poll showed only “33% believe having the federal government establish a single set of standards and regulations would be more cost effective.”  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: cost effective, federal government, Gov. Paul LePage, Maine, ObamaCare, Rasmussen poll

This Wednesday Maine Attorney General William Schneider announced that the Pine Tree State would become the 23rd state participating in Florida’s multi-state suit against Obamacare. With Oklahoma and Virginia each pursuing their own seperate suits, that brought the number of states fighting Obamacare’s budget busting Medicaid expansion to 25.

It didn’t take long for that number to become 26. The Kansas City Star reports:

“Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt sent a letter Wednesday seeking to join almost two dozen states in challenging the new federal health care reform law.” (Read the rest at The Foundry…)

Tags: Individual Mandate, Maine, Medcaid expansion, unconstitutional

An Issue Brief released yesterday by the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation (RWJF) concludes that small firms would largely benefit from the reform efforts that have been put forth in both the Senate bill (HR 3590) and the House bill (HR 3200). While the benefits from these bills to small businesses already are uncertain – and likely even deleterious – the latest version of the senate bill is even less likely to result in actual benefits for small employers.

Previous Heritage analysis has shown that small businesses would be affected by employer mandate structure under the House bill (HR 3200) and the cost-impact of this “pay or play” mandate is not trivial as the aforementioned RWJF Issue Brief purports. These mandates would effectively reach small firms with less than 25 workers—all small firms with, on average, between 21 and 25 workers— which are the small businesses that are supposed to reap the benefits of reform. (more…)

Tags: DirigoChoice, higher insurance premiums, Maine, small business