One was a bill that would allow the people of Maine to buy their health insurance policies outside of the State where rates are much cheaper. The bill was voted down on a party line vote. Rather than action the people of Maine were left one option to buy their insurance from a single provider or go without.

By creating a high risk pool we could distribute more evenly the costs of health care. This would lower the cost of insurance and enable more people to afford it which would increase the number of people insured driving down the cost of insurance further. Yet Augusta has not acted to implement this reform.

Dirigo Health has failed. Soon we will see new "fixes" to the program and they will have the same affect as the old "fixes," more money spent for less services rendered. We need to start prioritizing in Augusta and near the top of that list should be lowering health care costs. Rather than discussing, we should act to make insurance affordable for all Maine citizens and businesses Using market based solutions like the two discussed here along with regulatory reform we can cut the cost of health care.

Mainers don't have to settle for high health care costs we have solutions we just need to act.