Maine keeps coming up in health care reform discussions. Two moderate Republican Senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, are thought to be key players in passing a health care reform bill. Snowe serves on the Senate Finance Committee, which has the monumental task of figuring out how to fund the system’s overall.

Snowe and Collins talk about fixing health care by expanding the employer-based system we currently have. Yet Maine has a large seasonal, independent workforce.

With Consumers Union, I traveled to Maine to find out how the state’s workers, including those who work in the robust fishing industry, got their health care (see above video).

The fisherman, small businessmen and ski instructors I met there struggle to find health care. They’re either priced out of the individual market, waiting for MaineCare, or just don’t qualify.

Watch more videos about consumer perspectives on health care.