BANGOR, Maine — David White, owner of a small Bar Harbor car repair shop, said he was moved to get involved in health care reform in 2002.
During a “Highway to Health Care” rally at Cascade Park early Wednesday evening hosted by Rep. Adam Goode, D-Bangor, White said he once was proud to have paid the entire cost of health insurance coverage for his employees and their families.
“I considered it the right thing to do,” he said.
That changed, however, in 2002, which he said “was a stellar year for my business. We all deserved a raise. Instead, a 50-percent hike in our [health insurance] premiums meant reducing our coverage, raising our prices and laying off one person for six months,” he said. “My story is not at all unique.”
As White and other reform supporters see it, the current system isn’t working.
Goode, who sits on the Legislature’s Insurance and Financial Service Committee, agrees.
“As elected officials, we hear regularly about the challenges our constituents have in trying to get good health insurance coverage,” he said.
“We know that approximately one out of five Mainers are uninsured or underinsured, and for most of us, that’s unacceptable,” he said.
According to Goode, health insurance costs for Maine families rose by a rate of 4.5 times faster than the median income from 2000 to 2007.
“While we work hard in this state to make sure Maine’s uninsured rate is better than the rest of the country, we simply can’t go it alone,” he said.
To that end, he said, “Congress and President Obama are working on a uniquely American solution that will allow families to keep their insurance or have the choice of getting quality affordable health care through a public option without having to deal with private insurance companies.
“Mainers have seen premiums rise 105 percent since 2000, and once reform is passed, up to 129,000 middle-class Maine families will be eligible for premium credits to ease the burden of their health insurance costs,” he said.
Sponsored by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME, the “Highway to Health Care” tour featured a big green RV outfitted as a “mobile activism center,” complete with three on-board laptops, five cell phones and postcards attendees could use to contact members of their congressional delegation.
The event at Cascade Park also featured the local band Watcher and drew 40 to 50 people.
The only sign of opposition was a “boo” hollered from a car that drove by the park during the press conference part of the program.
“We wanted something that was fun and positive and talk about [the reform issue] without all the vitriol we’ve been seeing on cable TV in the last two or three weeks,” said tour staffer Blaine Rummel.
President Obama’s public health insurance option would create a government-run health care plan that would compete with private insurers to help keep the cost of premiums down, Rummell said.
Bangor was the last stop in the RV’s three-week, 10-state, 19-city tour, fellow tour staff member Marianne von Nordeck said. Also while in Maine, the bus stopped at Portland’s Post Office Park, where about 100 people turned out.