August 21, 2009
Dirigo
Today's Latin lesson: Dirigo, meaning "I lead." It is the state motto of Maine and the name of their 2003 universal health care plan was DirigoChoice. I'll confess I thought it read "DingoChoice" as in "Dingoes Ate My Baby," but the name is even more prescient than that.
The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page reports that Dingo --er DirigoChoice has very similar elements to ObamaCare and was sold under very similar promises.
Despite the giant expansions in Maine's Medicaid program and the new, subsidized public choice option, the number of uninsured in the state today is only slightly lower that in 2004 when the program began.Why did this happen? Among the biggest reasons is a severe adverse selection problem: The sickest, most expensive patients crowded into DirigoChoice, unbalancing its insurance pool and raising costs. That made it unattractive for healthier and lower-risk enrollees. And as a result, few low-income Mainers have been able to afford the premiums, even at subsidized rates.
This problem was exacerbated because since the early 1990s Maine has required insurers to adhere to community rating and guaranteed issue, which requires that insurers cover anyone who applies, regardless of their health condition and at a uniform premium. These rules—which are in the Obama plan—have relentlessly driven up insurance costs in Maine, especially for healthy people.
The Maine Heritage Policy Center, which has tracked the plan closely, points out that largely because of these insurance rules, a healthy male in Maine who is 30 and single pays a monthly premium of $762 in the individual market; next door in New Hampshire he pays $222 a month. The Granite State doesn't have community rating and guaranteed issue.
Perhaps, Dirigante. (They lead? did I get it?) The good people of Maine seek to lead us into the same quagmire of unfulfilled promises, market disruptions and unending expense that they have incurred.
UPDATE: Ed Morrissey: Remember the Maine! Oh, that's good.
Health Care Posted by John Kranz at August 21, 2009 12:36 PM
"The sickest, most expensive patients crowded into DirigoChoice, unbalancing its insurance pool and raising costs."
Wow, who'd have thought that would ever happen with a government program, that the people who pay the least will use it the most, while expecting The Rest Of Us (because we're "rich") to pay for them?
It's argued that private health insurance is the same kind of "racket," that it's still the healthy who pay for the sick. The difference is that you aren't forced into it. Fat chance with government-run programs.
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at August 21, 2009 1:29 PMAnd costs are controlled for the healthy by refusing to admit people who already have expensive *pre-existing* conditions.
Posted by: johngalt at August 21, 2009 3:37 PM | What do you think? [2]