MaineCare

As background, we look to some of the existing programs which Maine has in place. The first is Maine's Medicaid implementation known as MaineCare, which provided some level of coverage to almost half a million Mainers in 2010. A good overview of how MaineCare fits into the landscape of health care in Maine was produced in 2005 and is still largely relevant. From a HIX perspective, it is important to realize that a broad spectrum of services well beyond the scope of health insurance (long term care, disability coverage, etc) in encompassed in MaineCare.

The boundary between private insurers and the Medicaid infrastructure has been expanding year over year and particularly in Maine. This is one area we look to as the foundational aspect of any future Maine HIX. There is a strong history of public-private collaboration in delivering subsidized group and individual health insurance products to Mainers, meaning that any HIX implementation will not be "green field" development in any sense.

The next post will look at DirigoChoice, which builds on MaineCare and is even closer to a HIX-compliant offering.