A new coalition called Health Coverage for Maine launched their effort to oppose the people’s veto of the new taxes on beer, wine and soda.

The veto effort is orchestrated by Fed Up with Taxes, a coalition of business groups. They need to collect 55,000 signatures to repeal the law passed by the Legislature.

The Legislature approved the new taxes to fund Dirigo, the state’s health insurance program.

For Health Coverage for Maine, the issue is about health care. Leaders fear that undoing the legislation will cause people to lose their health insurance.

“Maine is a national leader in access to quality health care,” said Dr. Lani Graham, a former Maine Chief Health Officer and a National Library of Medicine physician, at a press conference Thursday. “For years, other states have looked to us as a model for expanding access as care becomes harder and harder to afford across the nation. This petition drive would undo years of progress in making Maine one of the best states in the country for health care access and quality. We must not move backwards.”

There’s also a public health component to their opposition. Alcohol and soda contributes to health problems, and they see the tax increases as a deterrent to those projects.

The medical community members are not alone in their opposition. The Portland area League of Young Voters and the Maine Education Association also are urging people not to sign the petition.

Many of these opponents paint the petition drive as a lobbyist’s veto, because Fed Up with Taxes is made up of many groups from the food and beverage industries such as the Maine Restaurant Association, the Maine Grocers Association and the Maine Beer and Wine Wholesalers Association.

Chris Hall, senior vice-president-governmental affairs for the Greater Portland Chamber of Commerce, is working with Fed Up with Taxes. He said this isn’t the case. The drive started because of the volume of concerns the chamber heard from the public, Hall said. Plus, there aren’t enough lobbyists in the state to make up the 55,000 signatures.

While the group’s opponents see this as a health care issue, they see it as a taxation issue, Hall said. Gov. John Baldacci promised no new taxes, and the Legislature was able to pass a budget carrying out this promise. Two weeks later, the Dirigo bill was changed at the last minute to include the taxes, striking out the originally proposed cigarette taxes.

No one will lose health care, Hall said.

The petitioners aren’t trying to repeal the bill – they are just trying to change it to restore the original funding vehicle, Hall said. The Legislature struck the savings offset payments formerly used to fund Dirigo and replaces those with the taxes. The people’s veto proposal restores the SOPs.