Governor Baldacci's Views on Healthcare Coverage in Maine

Health Care Portion of Governor John Baldacci's inauguration address

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The high cost of health care coverage has become a crushing burden, creating a drag on our economy, threatening businesses small and large and leaving many families without adequate protection from a catastrophic illness or accident.

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But two areas related to economic development will get my immediate attention.

First, health care. The time for talk is over. It's time for action. The growing cost of health care is at the root of the state's financial problems, and is affecting our economy in ways we may not even realize. How many workers won't get a raise this year because their employer has to pay more for health insurance? How many jobs could be added to our economy if the cost of health care wasn't so high? We spend over $5 billion a year in health care, but nearly one in 10 of us have no health insurance at all. Thousands of Maine people, young and old, are living in fear that a debilitating injury or illness will wipe them out because they don't have coverage; thousands more are one rate hike away from losing theirs.

Tomorrow, I will sign an executive order to establish a Governor's Office of Health Care Policy and Finance. This office will bring together the human and physical resources now dispersed throughout state government into a strategic, critical alliance to develop a comprehensive health policy and a plan to provide affordable, quality health care for every man, woman and child in the state of Maine.

Maine is not alone in this problem. But, we do not have the luxury of time to await a solution from away. As a state, as a government, we have as much responsibility to protect people's access to health care as we do to protect them from the dangers of international terrorism, and we must confront the problem with just as much sustained energy and focus.

The Office of Health Care Policy and Finance is not going to get bogged down in endless debates over whether health care is a right or a privilege, or whether we should have a single payer system or something else. Frankly, I'm pretty tired of these debates. What the people of this state need, and deserve, is a solution - a plan that will work and that we can afford. The Office of Health Care Policy and Finance will help me craft such a plan that I can present to the Legislature this year.

Make no mistake, we are in the early stages a health care financing crisis that will only get worse without strategic action. I can't promise a miracle. But I do promise to make sure that every possible resource in state government, with help from the private sector, will be devoted to addressing this problem. All Maine people deserve affordable, quality health care. But unless we act now, hard working Mainers, and responsible employers, will continue to struggle to maintain coverage. The sooner we rein in the high cost of health care, the sooner we can put more Maine people to work in good paying jobs and get our economy moving.

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