LaMarche Has Answer to High Insurance Costs
By John Richardson
Pat LaMarche is sitting behind a microphone in a Portland radio studio and talking about the high cost of health care. She's trying to explain to a caller from South Portland why he would pay hundreds of dollars more for a hospital stay than someone else would pay in a country that guarantees health care for everyone.
If LaMarche wins the Nov. 7 election and becomes Maine's governor, and if she convinces the Legislature to go along — and those are two big ifs — Maine would be the first state to provide all its citizens health care through a single-payer system. And, according to LaMarche, taxes would drop and businesses would expand. |
The reason, LaMarche says, "is that the five people in the bed before you didn't have the money or insurance to pay, and you have to pay the difference."
If LaMarche wins the Nov. 7 election and becomes Maine's governor, and if she convinces the Legislature to go along — and those are two big ifs — Maine would be the first state to provide all its citizens health care through a single-payer system. And, according to LaMarche, taxes would drop and businesses would expand.
"We're going to be trendsetters," she tells the WMPG audience. "It's going to be great."...
An experienced radio talk-show host, LaMarche's straightforward style, quick wit and ability to decipher and explain such subjects as health care, taxes and education are winning her respect and, sometimes, votes.
"She's very well-informed, very quick on her feet," said the Rev. Betsey Lewis after hearing LaMarche during a candidates' forum at Piper Shores Retirement Community in Scarborough.
Becky Hamblin, another Piper Shores resident, said LaMarche won her support. "She's very direct. It seems to me she's done her homework," Hamblin said.
Hamblin's husband, on the other hand, said that while LaMarche understands the problems in health care, she probably can't fix them. "That's a federal problem. We're not going to solve that without the federal government," said Edward Hamblin.
Some voters who might support LaMarche also worry that she will take votes away from Gov. John Baldacci, a Democrat, and improve the chances that Republican Chandler Woodcock will be Maine's next governor.
"I think that's one of the most important questions in this whole election — to what extent is that the case?" said Mark Brewer, assistant professor of political science at the University of Maine. "Part of it will have to do with what the polls show as we get closer."
LaMarche dismisses the idea. Unlike during her vice presidential campaign, she is not conceding votes to anyone.
LaMarche said she's actually drawing lots of supporters from the Republican Party and that her big concern is not a Woodcock victory, it's another Baldacci administration. "I think the governor's record is dismal," she said.
LaMarche lives in Yarmouth and has a daughter and a son in college. She has used her experiences with illnesses, financial struggles and single parenting to shape her priorities and connect with voters.
She is far from a professionally packaged politician....
LaMarche is not talking only about health care. She supports more aggressive energy conservation and the development of alternatives such as wind and biofuels. Liquefied natural gas, however, is only a short-term solution and is too risky for Maine's environment, LaMarche said.
She would put more money into buying and preserving lands such as key pieces of Maine's North Woods. She wants to create graduate schools in Maine to train doctors, pharmacists and dentists. She wants the state to provide child care at the State House to bring more women into the Legislature and diversify the viewpoints and voices that shape Maine laws.
"We are trying to be the campaign of ideas," LaMarche said. "I think we are, but the competition hasn't been very stiff."
LaMarche said her health care plan is based largely on the recommendations of state commissions that have studied Maine's health insurance structure and repeatedly recommended universal care. Mainers spend far more on health care than people in other developed nations, but they also tend to die younger, she said.
"We're sicker and we're paying more money to be sicker," she said.
Baldacci's Dirigo Health program hasn't worked, and the number of Mainers without insurance has grown to an estimated 141,000, she said. Meanwhile, businesses don't locate in Maine or expand here because of high health insurance costs, she said.
Under her plan, private employers would pay a payroll tax ranging from 5 percent for a business employing five or fewer workers to 12 percent for a business with more than 1,000 workers. The funds would go to a Maine Healthcare Authority, which would pay bills directly to health care providers.
Most businesses, LaMarche believes, would see dramatic savings from what they spend now. She concedes, however, that businesses that don't offer health insurance now might be forced to reduce wages to pay for the tax or, if they are paying minimum wages, absorb the new cost.
She rejects criticism that her plan is socialism, saying doctors will make decisions about care and patients will be able to choose their doctors. She also dismisses the argument that only the federal government can set up universal health care. Maine, she said, can show the rest of the country what is possible.
"Maine's the perfect fixer-upper," LaMarche said, "and what we need is the right carpenter."
