One aspect of the national debate on health care reform played out at the State House today where supporters and opponents squared off over a bill that would prohibit lifetime and annual payment caps on health insurance. Backers of the measure claim at least 100 Maine families a year are facing financial ruin when they exceed the caps on benefits contained in their policies, and are forced to pay the difference out of pocket. Opponents claim that lifting the limits will only drive up costs and make insurance less affordable.

Whenever House Majority Whip Seth Berry is asked why he is so passionate about demanding that insurance companies abandon their caps on lifetime and annual spending limits, he recalls meeting a friend who awoke one morning to find a freckle on his foot. Berry, a Bowdoinham Democrat, says that was the beginning of his friend's nightmare. "It turned out to be metastatic melanoma," he says.

Berry is sponsoring LD 1620, a bill that would prohibit insurance carriers from setting lifetime and annual spending limits on health insurance benefits. Berry says each year about 100 Maine familes find themselves in situations similar to that of his friend, who thought he was going to see the doctor about a routine situation.

"And within two weeks, he found out that he was going to have extremely expensive treatments," Berry says. "He had hit his benefit caps, the insurance company was saying they weren't going to pay for it, and he's fighting for his life right now, and he's also fighting at the same time -- having paid for insurance for decades -- he's fighting to keep his home, and I don't think that's fair to anyone."

Chris Dugan, director of corporate communications for Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Maine, says requiring insurers to offer products without a lifetime maximum will likely increase the cost of premiums to everyone in the health insurance market and reduce the affordability of coverage.

But Berry sees it differently. "I disagree with that. I don't think that the profit of the insurance companies should come before the protections to those who are insured and who are playing by the rules and who are paying for their insurance. I think we need fairness in the market and I think, fortunately, Maine's Bureau of Insurance does a good job of balancing, frankly, the guaranteed profit of the insurance companies with the needs of Maine citizens."

"I don't think that any of you buy your health insurance and say, 'Gee, next month my body's going to go to hell, and I'm going to need to replace it -- what do you think it's going to cost?'" says state Rep. Meredith Strang Burgess. a Cumberland Republican and cancer survivor.

Strang Burgess told members of the Legislature's Insurance and Financial Services Committee that many Mainers who have insurance never bothered to inquire whether their policies have benefit caps or annual spending limits. If they had, she said they would ask themselves a pivotal question.

"Did I buy enough? Whether it's right or wrong, I don't think anybody's in that mental thought process when you're buying your health insurance," she says. "You're really more worried that you're going to have to take care of the kids and need to make sure that they've got their shots and that everyone's sort of on a wellness plan. Finding out after you're diagnosed is clearly not the greatest time to find out that you have a low cap or that you have met your cap soon in your process of treatment, and you're out of money."

Opponents of the bill were still waiting to address the Committee on Insurance and Financial Services at the time of this broadcast. The panel is expected to work the bill later this month.