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Dirigo Health
DirigoChoice Insurance, Dirigo Savings, Blue Ribbon Commission
Dirigo Health is a comprehensive set of reforms with a goal of providing all Maine people with access to health care. As of June 2006, Dirigo Health's DirigoChoice insurance program was providing health care to more than 15,400 Mainers, including 2,300 small businesses. DirigoChoice is one of the fastest growing new insurance plans ever offered in Maine.
In addition, Dirigo Health reforms are saving money for all of us through cost containment measures and quality improvements. Dirigo is calculated to have saved $78 million across the healthcare system in 2004 and 2005. (Please read about additional Dirigo Health achievements to the right.)
Dirigo Health Overview
In 2003, a majority of both houses of the Maine state legislature passed the nationally heralded Dirigo Health legislation. The Dirigo Health plan is designed to address cost, quality, and access in Maine’s healthcare system and to achieve universal coverage by 2009. The three prongs of the Dirigo Health plan are to:
Contain Health Care Costs
Dirigo Health contains health cost inflation by encouraging cooperation and achieving administrative efficiencies among health care providers; reducing bad debt and charity care by covering the uninsured and underinsured; establishing voluntary cost constraints among health providers; scrutinizing new capital projects and medical technologies carefully, and pursuing several ways of reducing the cost of prescription drugs.
Increase Health Care Access
Dirigo Health increases access to health insurance coverage by controlling health care costs and creating a new health coverage program called DirigoChoice for small businesses and individuals.
Improve Health Care Quality
Dirigo Health improves health quality through research and the informational and educational efforts of the Maine Quality Forum.
More information on dirigo health:
Dirigo Health Agency: www.dirigohealth.maine.gov/
Governor’s Office of Health Policy and Finance: www.healthpolicy.maine.gov
A key component of Dirigo Health is the DirigoChoice insurance product. DirigoChoice is one of the most comprehensive coverage options on the market, and it offers significant discounts for many enrollees. As of June 2006, DirigoChoice insurance was providing health care to more than 15,400 Mainers, including 2,300 small businesses. DirigoChoice is one of the fastest growing new insurance plans ever offered in Maine.
For more information about enrolling in DirigoChoice, please visit the state's DirigoChoice information page at:
www.dirigohealth.maine.gov/dhlp02.html
Or call the DirigoChoice hotline at 1-877-892-8391.
Attention DirigoChoice Enrollees—
We need to hear from you!
The voices of real people who are benefiting from DirigoChoice are more powerful than those of insurance lobbyists—and there are more of you than them. If you are enrolled in DirigoChoice, your voice matters! Please fill out our short DirigoChoice questionnaire.
How does Dirigo Health save money?
By addressing the problems of cost, quality, and access, Dirigo Health is saving money in Maine’s healthcare system. The Dirigo Health law requires the savings from Dirigo to be calculated each year. The Dirigo Health Agency Board of Directors makes a recommendation to Maine’s Superintendent of Insurance. The Superintendent of Insurance then issues a decision about Dirigo’s savings. Dirigo savings have been calculated in this way for 2004, 2005, and 2006, the first three full years of Dirigo’s operation. According to the Superintendent’s ruling, Dirigo Health has saved at least $110.8 million in its first three years, as summarized in the chart below:
Total Savings from Dirigo Health after 3 Years:
For more information on Dirigo Savings, please visit the Maine Bureau of Insurance website.
Dirigo Health Blue Ribbon Commission
The first meeting of the Dirigo Health Blue Ribbon Commission formed by Governor Baldacci at the end of the legislative session was held on August 9. Tammy Greaton, MPA’s Executive Director, is sitting on this commission. MPA believes there is great potential for this Commission to take Dirigo Health to the next level in 2007. The next meeting, which is open to the public, will be held on September 7, and the Commission will continue to meet through December. To learn more about the commission,
Read the Governor's press release
Read Times Record article
Join us in the campaign to defend Dirigo Health
MPA members meet regularly to plan our healthcare campaign. If you'd like to get involved, call Jenny at 797-0967.
New DirigoChoice enrollment hotline
Thanks in part to MPA's work this year to expose Anthem's efforts to discourage enrollment in the DirigoChoice program, you can now enroll in DirigoChoice by calling the Dirigo Health Agency directly! The new hotline number is
1-877-892-8391. If you haven't called about DirigoChoice yet, now is the time!
"I want to tell you that DirigoChoice saved my life"
Read more stories of how DirigoChoice has changed the lives of Mainers...
Fox in the Henhouse?
Between November 10, 2005 and January 28, 2006, 37 volunteers made calls to Anthem agents across the state to request information about the DirigoChoice plan. The results of those calls raise real concern that Anthem has failed to represent the DirigoChoice product enthusiastically or accurately... read more
Key Dirigo Health Milestones
June 2003: A majority of both houses of the Maine legislature pass the nationally heralded Dirigo Health legislation.
June 2004: Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maine, the state’s largest private health insurer, submits a bid to provide DirigoChoice health insurance through the Dirigo Health Plan.
January 2005: Anthem opened enrollment in DirigoChoice insurance coverage for small businesses and self-employed people
April 2005: Anthem opened enrollment in DirigoChoice for individuals.
October 2005: The Maine Superintendent of Insurance finds that Dirigo Health reforms saved at least $43.7 million in 2004.
April 2006: Governor John Baldacci released the first biennial State Health Plan, a roadmap for making Maine the healthiest state in the nation, laying out an ambitious public health agenda. read more
May 2006: The Dirigo Health Reform is recognized as one of the top 18 government innovations nationwide for 2006 by the Innovation in American Government Awards.
read more
June 2006: The number of Mainers receiving healthcare coverage through DirigoChoice insurance tops 15,400, including 2,300 small businesses.
July 2006: The Maine Superintendent of Insurance finds that Dirigo Health reforms saved at least $34.3 million in 2005, contributing to a total savings of $78 million in the first two full years of Dirigo Health’s operation.