With no new enrollment as of July 1 and stated savings estimates and membership numbers gyrating up and down faster than a turkey trot, one has to wonder if Maine's Dirigo Health is made up of con artists, liars, and thieves or if they actually believe their mathmagical accounting.

On 8 July 2007, Dirigo Health released a 2006 estimated savings amount of $92.7 million.  By Friday, 27 July Maine's Dirigo Health Board of Directors had reduced the amount they claim the Dirigo Health program has saved the state's healthcare system in 2006 to $78 million, still more than twice the amount determined in 2005 that required a ruling by the State Supreme Court to be settled.  The recently reduced $78 million figure will now be submitted to the state superintendent of insurance, who has historically reached a lower number than the board, for final determination.

Karynlee Harrington, executive director of the Dirigo Health Agency, was quoted in the Portland Press Herald stating that the agency has refined the methodology used to determine the savings amount based on past decisions of the superintendent seemingly oblivious as to why it should be objectionable that Dirigo's accounting methodologies are changeable, year-to-year and seem to conveniently eliminate Dirigo's earlier cost concerns.  However, not only do Dirigo's accounting methodologies change based on the needs of the day, but the membership numbers experience dramatic unexplained leaps, as well.

On 1 July 2007, when Dirigo stopped accepting new enrollees stating cost concerns, they quoted membership of 14,400, many of whom already had insurance and less than half of the 31,000 Dirigo said they would cover in 2003 and nowhere near the 130,000 Dirigo forecast for coverage by 2009.  By 28 July 2007, only 27-days after halting enrollment, Dirigo mathmagically claims 26,000 Maine residents have been helped.

For their part, as expected, Maine insurance carriers plan to dispute the board's figures, adding that it's a conflict of interest for the Dirigo board to make a determination on savings that will translate into income for its program.

Dirigo's annual attempt to be more than just another failed attempt at healthcare reform with lingering delusions of grandeur is similar, in its own way, to the frivolousness, fantasy, and mathmagical fiction that might be found in a Harry Potter book -- too bad, unlike JK Rowling, Dirigo doesn't know when to end the fairy tale.?