Kennebec Valley Organization

The Kennebec Valley Organization (KVO) is a broad-based organization of religious congregations, labor union locals, community and small business groups that brings people together across lines of religion, geography, age, ethnic group, and economic status to take action on our issues of shared concern, such as saving, strengthening, and creating good jobs, affordable housing, and critical public services. Also, by building relationships and developing leadership skills within our member groups, we will strengthen our own institutions as well as the broader community.

KVO is a member of the InterValley Project, a cooperative organizing network that includes the Granite State Organizing Project in New Hampshire, the Naugatuck Valley Project in Connecticut, the Pioneer Valley Project and the Merrimack Valley Project in Massachusetts, and the Rhode Island Organizing Project.

Greater Skowhegan Area Chapter

Greater Waterville Area Chapter

Southern Kennebec and Valley-wide Chapter

Foundations of the Kennebec Valley Organization

• The Vision
• Formation of the Sponsoring Committee (2003)
• Deciding of Initial Priorities
• Founding Event of the KVO (2005)

• Congregational Development Campaigns
• New England Joint Action
• Jobs Campaign: A Higher Minimum Wage For Maine
• Health Care Campaign: Improving Mental Health Crisis Response in the Valley
• KVO Public Action on Mental Health Crisis Response (2006)
• Results of the Mental Health Crisis Response Campaign

Long-term Care Action Campaign

• Roots of the Campaign
• Round Tables to Set Priorities (2007)
• Priority #1: Better Care through Better Jobs
• Collecting Stories of Long-term Care
• Public Action Meeting on Long-term Care (2007)
• Health Care for Health Care Workers - Outcomes
• Priority #2: A Cooperative Approach
• Mid Maine TimeBank Kick-off Event (2008)

• Roots of the Campaign
• Our Health Care Story Meetings
• Special Delegates Assembly on Health Care (2008)
• Health Care for America Now Action at Anthem HQ (2008)
• Candidates' Forum on Health Care (2008)
• 4th Annual Convention and Supper (2008)
• Maine Voices for Coverage Press Conference (2009)
• BOI Public Hearing on Anthem's Proposed 18% Rate Increase (2009)

Starting in the year 2002, with encouragement from heads of statewide religious, labor and community networks, leaders from across the Kennebec Valley began meeting, talking with one another, building relationships, and working to create a faith and values-based, multi-issue organization of religious congregations, labor union locals, community and small business groups that will:

•  Build community by building relationships among people within and between institutions and across lines of religion, geography, age, ethnic group, and economic status;
• Develop the skills of leaders to be more effective in their institutions and their community;
• Take action on the issues of concern that the members share – for example, saving and creating good jobs, affordable housing, and public services such as physical and mental health care, worker training, and youth services.

After deciding in September 2002 to focus their initial organizing efforts in the unusually hard-hit region of Kennebec and lower Somerset Counties, regional and local Maine leaders formed the Kennebec Valley Organization Sponsoring Committee (KVOSC) in May 2003 to plan and carry out the organizing campaign. Institutions joining the KVOSC pledged their name, representative involvement, members’ participation in leadership development, and commitment to finding the resources necessary to establish the permanent Kennebec Valley Organization. IVP hired Dan Koehler to begin work in the Valley as KVOSC’s Organizer in June 2003.

After reaching its start-up fundraising goals in February 2004, KVOSC incorporated in the state of Maine and assumed responsibility from IVP for its own operating budget, under the fiscal sponsorship of the Maine Conference of the United Church of Christ. In March 2004, KVOSC voted to join IVP, becoming its sixth member organization.

On October 24, 2004, KVOSC leaders decided on a 12-month action plan that would take the organization into Listening Campaigns to build relationships and determine initial issue priorities, Issue Campaigns to take action on the issues identified, and a Founding Event on November 6, 2005 to formally establish the permanent Kennebec Valley Organization.

In the winter and spring of 2005, more than 300 members of a dozen congregations and union locals participated in internal listening campaigns in which they discussed on what issues facing their families and communities they felt most passionate about taking action. Each institution decided on their three top priorities.

On May 1, 2005, more than 50 leaders in delegations from 15 congregations, union locals, and community groups gathered to report the results of their listening campaigns and to decide on the initial issue priorities for the Kennebec Valley Organization. A consensus was reached that health care and jobs were the two top priorities, and a Jobs Team and a Health Care Team were immediately formed to begin conducting research and developing strategies to address specific, actionable issues within these broad priority areas.

On November 6, 2005, more than 100 member delegates, regional sponsor representatives, and allies met to establish the Kennebec Valley Organization. They voted on a constitution and dues structure (which will generate more than $6,000 annually from founding members alone), elected officers, approved the action campaign recommendations of the Issue Teams, and secured commitments from 7 Valley-based state legislators to work with KVO around its priority issues.

 Peter Crockett of the Central Maine Central Labor Council officially calls the Founding Event to order.

 Co-chair Fr. Moe Morin of Notre Dame de Lourdes Catholic Church in Skowhegan runs a tight meeting.

Two KVO member congregations - Notre Dame de Lourdes Parish of Skowhegan and First Congregational Church (U.C.C.) of Waterville - carried out successful Congregational Development Campaigns in 2004-2005. These campaigns centered around an 8-week program of one-to-one relationship building that created or strengthened hundreds of relationships within the congregations, developed new leaders for church and community life, and surfaced new energy and commitment to act on shared interests discovered through this relationship-building process.

On January 16th, 2005, both churches kicked off their campaigns with energetic meetings of 115 Notre Dame parishioners and 36 First Congregational members respectively. The highlight of the meeting was the one-to-one selection, when everyone put their name in the hat and then drew out the name of someone to do a one-to-one with in the coming week. This process was repeated every Sunday at each campaign meeting, and by the end of the 8 weeks the two congregations had done more than 1,200 individual meetings.

Pictures from the previous campaigns are below. Click on the picture to view a larger version.

 115 parishioners of Notre Dame de Lourdes in Skowhegan gather on January 16th for the kick-off meeting of their 8-week relationship-building campaign.

 Sr. Claudette leads a training at Notre Dame on the three C's of a one-to-one meeting: Equal Conversation, Connection, and Commitment.

Members of Notre Dame's "Team of the Week" let their lights shine during the faith reflection at their February 6th campaign meeting.

 Members of First Congregational Church (U.C.C.) of Waterville set up one-to-one meetings with each other after their February 27th campaign meeting.

As a member of the InterValley Project cooperative organizing network, the Kennebec Valley Organization helped to lead a New England-wide campaign to deal with the twin pressures on working and low-income families: high housing costs and limited access to decent jobs. The Organizing Leadership and Training Center (OLTC) and Anti-Displacement Project (A-DP) took part in the campaign as well.

On May 21, 2005, more than 850 delegates from our organizations gathered at the Parish of the Transfiguration in Manchester, New Hampshire to call on our New England Congressional delegations, as well other public officials, to protect 4 key housing and education progams from cuts in the federal budget: Section 8 housing vouchers, Community Development Block Grants, Pell grants, and adult education.

KVO clergy and women religious also joined hundreds of their colleagues from across New England in signing onto the New England Joint Action Clergy Statement, "Budgets are Moral Documents."

As a result of the efforts of the New England Joint Action and similar efforts throughout the country, these four programs avoided catastrophic cuts and changes in the 2006 federal budget.  

In order to improve the quality of jobs available to the Valley's most vulnerable workers, and to strengthen the local economy through increased spending, the KVO Jobs Team decided in 2005 to support a statewide effort to raise the Maine minimum wage from $6.50 to $7.00 per hour over two years.

Wage Justice

On February 14, 2006, KVO organized the "Wage Justice Express", which brought close to 20 leaders from the Valley to the State House to speak with their legislators about the minimum wage. The effort was covered by a television crew from News 8-WMTW, which broadcast a segment on it on the 6:00 news.

Pictures from the February 14 Wage Justice Express are below. Click on the picture to view a larger version. Use the "Back" button in your web browser to return to this page.

KVO leaders ride the Wage Justice Express bus down to Augusta from Waterville and Skowhegan.  

 Members of the Wage Justice Express take a moment in the Cross Office Building to discuss with one another why a higher minimum wage is important to them.

 Sen. Peter Mills meets with KVO leaders outside Senate chambers to discuss the need for a higher minimum wage.

VICTORY! - Governor Signs Minimum Wage Increase Into Law

On April 13, 2006, Governor Baldacci signed L.D. 235 into law, raising Maine's minimum wage to $7.00 an hour by October 2007. Thanks in part to phone calls and personal visits by KVO leaders, the bill passed the legislature by the narrowest of margins.

Gov. Baldacci signs L.D. 235, "An Act to Raise Maine's Minimum Wage", into law. KVO 1st Vice President Rev. George Hodgkins looks on.

After some research, the KVO Health Care Team identified mental health crisis response as a specific issue of concern. They have met with mental health advocates, service providers, family members, and law enforcement agencies who all agree that a vital piece of a comprehensive system for responding to people in mental health crisis is having more police and other first responders who are trained specifically to handle these situations.

The Health Care Team also learned about Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training, an innovative program offered by NAMI-Maine to law enforcement officers across the state that brings officers in closer relationship with local mental health service providers and teaches them how to recognize and defuse situations involving people in mental health crisis, including suicidal depression, delusions, and violent behavior.

CIT training has had tremendous and measurable impact in the areas where it has been implemented, including Portland. Some documented outcomes include:

•  Decreased officer injury rates;
• Decreased use of force; 
• Decreased seclusion and restraint in emergency rooms;
• Decreased arrest rates of mentally ill individuals;
  • Portland: a study of 1465 CIT contacts found a 2% arrest rate, compared to rough national average of 20%
• Increased compliance with community services [treatment].

More to come...

More to come...

In the Spring of 2006, KVO decided to address the crisis of long-term care and personal assistance for elderly and disabled community members in the Kennebec Valley. We see this as both a jobs and a health care issue.

We heard from direct care workers – that is, front-line caregivers such as Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs), Home Health Aides and Personal Care Aides – in our member groups about the challenges they face to provide good care, including high patient loads; low pay; physical strain and injury; long, unpredictable hours; and, perhaps most ironically, lack of access to health care benefits for themselves.

Nursing homes and agencies, with limited revenues coming mostly through government reimbursements, cannot offer competitive wages and benefits to recruit and retain enough qualified workers.

With the crisis of direct care work comes a crisis of direct care. We heard stories from our member groups of people who worry about getting quality nursing home or home health care for themselves or loved ones, now or in the future. People are worried that they will not be able to find enough help to stay in their homes as long as possible, or, if nursing home care is required, that there will not be enough beds or that overstretched staffs will not be able to adequately attend to their needs.

In the Fall of 2007, KVO organized a campaign of round-table discussions to bring together all those affected by long-term care – whether as consumers, family caregivers, workers, or future consumers – to share their stories and prioritize concerns. In October, eight churches and care providers in four communities held round tables that brought together more than 100 people.

The KVO Long-term Care Strategy Team – made up of volunteer leaders from KVO member and potential member groups – examined the more than 30 top concerns to emerge from the round-table meetings and saw two overarching priorities:

1.  Improve care by improving the pay, benefits and recognition of direct care workers;
2. Support consumers and caregivers (paid and unpaid) through education, awareness, and cooperative initiatives.

In an effort to address the first priority lifted up in the Round Table Meetings, KVO joined the statewide Direct Care Worker Coalition in supporting L.D. 1687 in the Maine Legislature, "An Act to Increase Health Insurance Coverage for Front-line Direct Care Workers Providing Long-term Care."

We called it the Health Care for Health Care Workers Bill.

Research showed that 40% of direct care workers in home care, and 25% of direct care workers in nursing homes do not have health insurance. Many of those who have insurance are covered by state-administered Medicaid, which is subject to limited state budgets and changing political winds. The fact that the very people who provide such intimate health care for our communities’ elderly, disabled, and chronically ill members often do not have access to health care themselves is a glaring injustice, notwithstanding the impact it has on recruitment and retention of quality workers in these essential jobs.

KVO leaders organized grassroots support for LD 1687 by (among other things) writing letters to the editor, meeting with individual legislators, testifying at public hearings, and publishing a booklet of personal stories of those affected – as workers, consumers, and family caregivers – by the low pay and benefits in long-term care.

In order to illustrate the relationship of quality direct care jobs to quality direct care for our elderly, disabled and chronically ill community members, the KVO Long-term Care Team collected personal stories from people who experience direct care as consumers, workers, providers or unpaid caregivers in both nursing homes and home care.

KVO held a public action meeting with over 100 people that included research reports, personal testimonies, and even a skit drawing parallels between long-term care today and the Biblical story of Ruth and Naomi. Four of five state legislators present and the Governor’s Director of the Office of Elder Services pledged to support the health care bill.

The support that KVO and its allies on the DCWC generated helped to keep the bill alive into the second session of the Legislature.  Due to a state budget crisis and uncertainty about the future of the state-funded insurance product that would have covered the workers, the bill was eventually killed in committee. However, several legislators indicated an interest in revisiting the issue in the 2009 session, and the chair of the Insurance Committee directed the state’s Insurance Commissioner to form a task force to explore other options for getting health insurance for direct care workers. Three KVO leaders (two direct care workers and a consumer) were appointed to the commission, which meets this summer.

In our central Maine communities, long term care is not just about professional health care. In our round tables, we heard a strong desire to strengthen the local support networks that allow families and communities to “care for their own”, and for frail elderly to remain in their homes for as long as possible.

The Long-term Care Team researched various model initiatives used in other parts of Maine and the country to achieve this. One model that stood out was the Time Bank concept – in which a large pool of community members sign up to voluntarily exchange services with one another using the currency of “time dollars.”

For example, a homebound senior can earn time dollars by teaching knitting lessons, which she can then spend getting a volunteer to drive her on errands. The errand driver can spend his time dollars to get another time bank member to help paint his house, and so on. In some existing Maine time banks, hundreds of members exchange thousands of hours of service with each other every month.

KVO leaders are met with Maine Time Bank leaders, and assessed the feasibility and the demand for creating a Time Bank in central Maine. Seeing strong demand, the team of leaders began work creating the Mid Maine Time Bank.

On June 8, 2008, more than 50 people braved 100 degree heat to gather at Immaculate Heart of Mary in Fairfield to become founding members of the Mid Maine Time Bank.

A strong leadership team worked with newly-hired MMTB Coordinator Stacey Jacobsohn to teach the new members about the values, mission, and nuts and bolts of time banking through presentations, testimonies, skits and interactive activities.

Within the first week of operation, 60 people had applied to be members, offering more than 50 different skills and services to be exchanged.

Roots of the Campaign

After the defeat in the spring of 2008 of a modest plan to get a small number of direct care workers covered by health insurance through LD 1687, it is clear that deeper changes are needed in our health care system. KVO leaders decided that the best chance of getting health care for these vulnerable workers is to work toward a system that can ensure health care for everyone.

The KVO Health Care Team initiated a 3-phase plan to begin our Health Care for All action campaign.

Phase 1: Our Health Care Story Meetings

KVO member groups organized small, round table-style meetings throughout the months of May and June 2008. These gatherings provided a chance for people to share their personal experiences with health care, and reflect on the values they and their institutions bring to the question of reform. Each meeting reached consensus around the declaration, "Everyone deserves the opportunity to have quality, affordable health care."

Phase 2: Special Delegates Assembly on Health Care

On June 18, 2008, 40 KVO delegates and allies gathered to report from the Our Health Care Story meetings, learn about current health care system from policy experts and advocates, and decide on guiding principles for the KVO health care campaign.

Phase 3: Candidates Forum on Health Care

On September 28, K VO will present our health care agenda to legislative candidates and ask them how they would work to support our health care goals if elected.

Phase 1 - Our Health Care Stories

From April to June, 2008, KVO held Our Health Care Story Meetings in most of our member groups throughout the Valley. The purpose of these meetings was to:

• Update KVO members on the progress (and roadblocks) in our long-term care campaign – specifically around obtaining health care benefits for direct care workers – and the relationship with broader health care access questions;

• Build and strengthen our relationships with one another by sharing our personal health care stories, hopes and concerns;

• Reflect on the values and principles that we bring – as individuals and as a church/union/etc. - to the health care debate;

• Surface stories, leaders, and energy to take action to expand access to quality health care for all.

In all, more than 100 people participated in meetings in Skowhegan, Waterville, Augusta, Oakland, and Fairfield. The participants reached consensus on the declaration that:

"Everyone should have the opportunity to get quality, affordable health care."

The stories and reflections lifted up in these meetings formed the basis for the principles of health care reform that were discussed and voted upon at the June 18th Special Delegates Assembly on Health Care.

KVO is continuing to collect personal stories of health care. If you have one to add, contact us to find out how!

Phase 2: Special Delegates Assembly on Health Care

On June 18th, 40 KVO delegates and allies gathered at First Congregational Church (UCC) of Waterville to report on the Our Health Care Story meetings, learn about our current health care system and proposals for reform from policy experts and advocates, and decide on guiding principles for the KVO health care campaign.

Our Health Care Panel included:

• Doug Clopp, Policy Analyst, Consumers for Affordable Health Care (CAHC)
• Glenn Beamer, Director, Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center
• Kerry Sirois, Administrator, Mount St. Joseph Holistic Care Community
• Peter Crockett, Health Care Organizer, Central Maine Labor Council (AFL-CIO)

Based on the stories brought forward in the Our Health Care Story Meetings, the KVO Health Care Team brought 20 proposed health care principles forward at the meeting. After hearing testimonies, and presentations and Q&A from the panel, delegates had the chance to add their own proposals, and to discuss which principles should be given top priority in guiding KVO's efforts at health care system reform.

After debate, sticker voting, and more discussion, the assembled delegates reached a consensus that these five principles should be our top priorities to guide our campaign for quality, affordable health care for all:

1.  Health care is a basic human right stemming from the sanctity of human life. A JUST SOCIETY must ensure that everyone receives compassionate, comprehensive and competent health care, independent of employment, age, health or family history.
2. Health care should emphasize PREVENTION, and preventive medical care should be covered by every patient’s health care policy
3. AFFORDABILITY: Everyone pays on a sliding scale, based on financial ability
4. Special efforts should be made to provide care for geographic areas and populations that have been UNDERSERVED, such as rural areas, inner cities, and impoverished communities
5. Insurance companies and other third party payers, the pharmaceutical industry, and other commercial interests should not function as barriers to care, or impede the provider/patient relationship in making medical decisions

Judi Short of Corpus Christi Parish reads a letter from Bishop Malone of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland to open the meeting.

Dr. Dan Summers of St. Matthew's Episcopal presents the Health Care Team's 20 proposed principles for health reform. Assembly chairs Helen Hanson (MSEA-SEIU Local 1989) and Rev. George Hodgkins, Jr. (Centenary UMC) look on.

 Dr. Glenn Beamer of the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center speaks about health care policy. Looking on are fellow panelists Doug Clopp (CAHC), Kerry Sirois (Mt. St. Joseph), and Peter Crockett (AFL-CIO).

 Delegates discuss what should be KVO's top priorities in pursuing health care reform.

Action at Anthem HQ - August 7, 2008

KVO has joined Maine Health Care for America Now!, a coalition of groups dedicated to ensuring quality, affordable health care for all.

On Thursday, August 7 KVO leaders joined with coalition allies at a State House press conference to highlight the extremely high profits taken in by the state's major private health insurer, Anthem Health Plans of Maine, and the lack of transparency in its health care spending.

The press conference coincided with the release of a special report from the Northwest Federation of Community Organizations on the skyrocketing profits nationwide of major insurance companies. Key findings in the report include:

•  Anthem's profits in Maine increased 89.2% between 2004 and 2007 while its membership increased only 2.4%.
• This disproportionate increase means that, in 2007 alone, Anthem's annual profits were $75.7 million. These profits are routinely sent out of state in the form of a dividend to Anthem's parent company, Wellpoint.
• In 2006, Anthem made $126.48 in profit per member per year. In 2007 that number nearly doubled to $245.40.
• Anthem currently holds $252.1 million in surplus and capital. Mainers have paid this money in premiums, but it has not been used to reduce the cost of care, lower premiums, pay providers or improve the quality of care.

KVO Health Care Team Chair Helen Hanson speaks at the HCAN press Conference.

Melanie Collins delivers our questions to Anthem headquarters. There has been no response.

Phase 3: Candidates' Forum on Health Care

On Sunday, September 28th, KVO held a forum to ask our candidates for state and federal legislative seats to endorse our Declaration of Health Care Principles; and to commit, if elected, to meeting with KVO leaders to discuss specific ways they will work with us in the areas of long-term care, accountability and transparency for private health insurers, and generally working to ensure health care for all.

Eleven candidates for state House and Senate seats joined us, and two representatives from federal candidates' campaigns participated. There was a mix of Republicans and Democrats, challengers and incumbents. All 13 candidates answered YES to ALL of our questions.

QUESTIONS ON KVO GENERAL PRINCIPLES

Do you support our Declaration of Health Care Principles, particularly our top five priorities?

If elected, will you take action to advance these principles?

LONG-TERM CARE QUESTIONS

Do you see the lack of health benefits for direct care workers as a crisis?

Do you there is a link between this problem and the quality of long-term care?

(STATE CANDIDATES ONLY) Will you agree to meet with us within 3 months of your election to discuss the Superintendent’s report and work together to implement some of the action recommendations?

(FEDERAL CANDIDATES ONLY) Will you work to make sure any state-level effort is supported with federal funds?

HEALTH CARE FOR AMERICA NOW COALITION QUESTIONS

(STATE CANDIDATES ONLY) If elected, will you work to ensure transparency and accountability from private insurers? What will you do?

(FEDERAL CANDIDATES ONLY) Do you agree with the HCAN Statement of Common Purpose?

(FEDERAL CANDIDATES ONLY) If elected, will you or your top health care staffer meet with representatives from the HCAN coalition to discuss common health care goals in the upcoming Congressional session?

Participating Candidates

Click on the candidate's name to read a transcript of his or her responses to our questions at the forum.

FOR MAINE HOUSE:
Steven Huber, Democratic candidate for House District 54 (Winslow)
Rep. H. David Cotta, Republican incumbent for House District 55 (Albion, China, part of Benton, Unity Plantation)
Christopher Doyon, Democratic candidate for House District 55
Priscilla Jenkins, Democratic candidate for House District 82 (Winthrop and Readfield)
Rep. Edward Finch, Democratic incumbent for House District 84 (Fairfield, Rome, Smithfield)
Miles Ranger, Republican candidate for House District 84
Rep. Donna Finley, Republican incumbent for House District 85 (Skowhegan)
Garry Cupples, Democratic candidate for House District 88 (Anson, New Portland, Embden, Bingham, northern Somerset Co.)

FOR MAINE SENATE:
Sen. Lisa Marrache, Democratic incumbent for Senate District 25 (Kennebec Co – Waterville to Pittsfield)
Sen. Peter Mills, Republican incumbent for Senate District 26 (Somerset Co)
Robert Sezak, Democratic candidate for Senate District 26 (Somerset Co)

FOR U.S. CONGRESS:
Rosemary Winslow, on behalf of Congressman Mike Michaud, Democratic incumbent for Congressional District 2 (Waterville north)

FOR U.S. SENATE:
Kyle Noonan, on behalf of Congressman Tom Allen, Democratic candidate for Senate

KVO's 4th Annual Convention was held at Centenary United Methodist Church in Skowhegan, attended by about 40 member delegates, allies, and public officials. Maine Superintendent of Insurance Mila Kofman delivered a rousing keynote address highlighting both the importance and the difficulty of our task in fighting for health insurance for low and moderate income people, particularly direct care workers.

We also took the time to recognize a couple of special clergy leaders who have recently moved away from the area - Fr. Moe Morin and Rev. George Hodgkins, Jr.

Marilyn Spaulding of the Mid Maine TimeBank provided a delicious supper for all.

KVO took part with our partners in the Maine Voices for Coverage coalition in a press conference to kick off our campaign to win measures that will increase the amount of transparency in health care. Transparency simply means that we should know what we are paying for when we pay for health insurance, and the quality of care we are getting from our health care providers.

KVO Health Care Chair Helen Hanson delivered a personal testimony that helped to underscore the importance of having access to good information to make informed choices in health care. She had been led to believe that her insurance policy had a $10,000 deductible (which is bad enough, but the best policy she could afford), but when her expenses climbed above that amount and the bills kept coming, she found out she wouldn't be covered until her family had paid $30,000 out of pocket. As a result, this dedicated health care worker said, "I have now joined the ranks of the uninsured."

Rep. Sharon Treat was also at the press conference, and she announced her intention to submit a bill that will give consumers (patients) the right to better know and understand their health care options. The Maine Voices for Coverage Coalition believes this is a critical foundation for the quality improvement and cost containment work that will eventually make universal health care possible.

In March , Bureau of Insurance Commissioner, Mila Kofman, held public hearings on Anthems proposed rate increases in Bangor, Portland and Gardiner. Members of the public overwhelmingly disapproved of Anthem's proposal--which includes a 34% increase on certain policyholders.

Over a dozen KVO members joined 40 other citizens, at the Gardiner hearing. KVO members Eunice Spooner, Jean Chaude and Kathy Lowe, along with scores of others, gave testimony against the proposed hikes. (See news coverage below). In all, KVO and our allies on the Health Care for America Now and Maine Voices for Coverage coalitions helped to turn out 200 people to the 3 hearings. In past years, fewer than a dozen people would turn out to such hearings.

An exciting result of this round of hearings was Commissioner Kofman announced she will be holding hearings statewide to disucss overall reform of the Healthcare and Insurance system.

MAY 19, 2009 UPDATE: In response to the public outcry and her bureau's own analysis, Commissioner Kofman announced that she would reject Anthem's rate increase request unless they cut it nearly in half. This action will save millions of dollars for about 12,000 Maine individual policyholders struggling to maintain their uncertain grasp on health coverage!