The promise of Dirigo Health reform, when introduced in 2003, was to create a new public option DirigoChoice and cover all of Maine's 128,000 uninsured by 2009.

To date, Maine taxpayers have spent $155 million on a program that today covers just 3,400 of Maine's uninsured, about 3 percent. Premiums on this public plan have skyrocketed 74 percent in just four years. Dirigo Health is the perfect example of what will happen with a public option - high costs, skyrocketing premiums, huge crowd-out of private insurance and reduced benefits.

Congress should learn from Maine's Dirigo Health debacle and not replicate this costly....