Live blogging Kathleen Sebelius at UM

12:34 pm

“Thank you for the incredibly good work you’ve been doing in Maine,” Sebelius says. Her final remarks are, “Roll up your sleeves, we’ve got some serious work to do.”

12:33 pm

In her closing remarks, Sebelius says everyone she’s talked to is terrified of losing their coverage. “This is a moment we can’t pass by. A tremendous amount of work has been done so far.” The president is very intent on passing a bill this fall, Sebelius says. “We don’t want to look back and say, ‘If only we’d done these three or four things.’”

12:30 pm

Sebelius says states “can’t do it alone” and that it has to be a national effort. The forum has now ended.

12:27 pm

Sebelius says the bill would also provide incentives to increase advanced screening for diseases such as cancer.

12:26 pm

Sebelius says the new bill increases money for preventive care and provides incentives for individuals to make healthier choices such as quitting smoking.

12:25 pm

Emily Cain, D-Orono, advocates prevention first. She says the amount of money spent on emergency care is far more than the amount spent on preventive care, and asks how to encourage people to think ahead.

12:20 pm

Sebelius is now taking questions.

A man points out that decisions are already often made by insurance companies, not doctors.

12:19 pm

A urologist from Bangor tells of taking care of a coworker with epilepsy who can’t afford the best medicine and instead had to be treated with an inferior drug. He suffered a seizure and had to go to the emergency room, which ended up costing the same as more than a year of the medicine.

12:13 pm

Panel members are telling their stories. An instrument maker tells of a friend who was sent home from the hospital because of “heartburn” and died the next day from his heart attack.

12:08 pm

The panel members are introducing themselves. So far there have been a small business owner who first offered a “Cadillac” health plan to his employees at first but now offers a plan that is, in his words, basically worthless and a women who had cancer in her youth and now predicates her life on whether or not she can get health insurance.

11:52 am

Sebelius is urging change to the status quo. “We live sicker and die younger than any other developed country in the world.”

11:50 am

Sibelius: Since the year 2000, insurance premiums for Mainers have doubled.

11:47 am

We are closer than we have ever been to health care reform in the United States, Sebelius says. According to Sebelius, 90 percent of the bills in Congress are the same.

11:43 am

Maine will receive qrant from the HHS for expanded health insurance, Sebelius announces.

11:42 am

The panel has been introduced and Sebelius is making some opening marks. “Gov. Baldacci … has been a real champion for extended healthcare,” Sebelius says. She praises Maine’s congressional delegation.

11:16 am

This will be a live blog of Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s visit and talk at UMaine. Sebelius should be arriving shortly.