LD1687 Voted Down in IFS

Today in the working session of the Insurance and Financial Services Committee of the Maine State Legislature, LD1687 was voted down. Many committee members voiced their concern for direct care workers having no health insurance, direct line care givers having no care for themselves. Without funding for Dirigo, they could not support LD1687. It does seem odd that with LD2247 levying a 50-cent per pack tax hike on cigarettes and a 1.8 percent surcharge on hospital bills that the funding for LD1687 wouldn't be there if LD2247 passes. Perhaps these tax increases are to support Dirigo at the current level and not increase it to let another group in. Although LD1687 got shot down today, there is a ray of hope and a chance to work on this again with the next Legislature. IFS Co-Chair Senator Nancy Sullivan asked that the Superintendent of Insurance look into the rules pertaining to groups of workers buying a group policy, pooling direct care workers or the agencies they work for together to buy group insurance. This is something I've been asking about for some time now. Maybe I've finally found the right door to knock on! It was good to hear something positive about pooling workers together. I usually got the response of direct care workers are a high risk to insure; our work classification keeps us from doing this, ie we are per diem workers; we're too old; wages are more important than health care coverage; something about community rating (I'm still not sure on that one); all this is what I've heard as to why direct care workers can't pool together to buy group health insurance. So, even though LD1687 is dead, the issues it raises are not. LD1687, or something like it, will be back next session. Who knows? We may be successful the next time around. We'll have a new Legislature to work with. There's always room for hope!