"As Maine goes, so goes the nation"?

In this case, I hope not.

David Freddoso examines how Maine's public option plan, DirigoChoice, failed to reduce the number of uninsured, failed to reduce the cost of health care, but succeeded in driving up insurance rates for everyone.

Over the next five years, Dirigo would collect premiums and dole out subsidies, for net revenues of $109 million. Taxpayers and insurers kicked in in $155 million more. As of May 2009, Maine had spent about $317 million on Dirigo, including the start-up money.

The result: About 3,400 previously uninsured Mainers are insured today with Dirigo. That's $93,000 for each newly insured person. The percentage of uninsured Mainers remains right where it was when Dirigo started: 10 percent. A large majority of those who switched to Dirigo – 64 percent – dropped their private insurance and switched to the subsidized “public option.”

Dirigo's enrollment numbers had never approached expectations, but they have plummeted recently because the program is no longer a good deal. The expected cost-reductions never materialized, so premiums had to be ratcheted up by 74 percent in five years.

Read the whole thing, it shows the flaws in much of what is being proposed at the national level.

via Megan McArdle