BIDDEFORD — During a season when many are on vacation, Maine’s five gubernatorial candidates ”“ one Democrat, one Republican and three independents ”“ are busy campaigning, with a view toward the November election.

On Monday, one of those candidates, independent Eliot Cutler, spent the day in Biddeford visiting small businesses and listening to the concerns of their owners and employees.

One of the businesses Cutler visited on his trek through town was Soleras Ltd., located on Route 1 in the Airport Industrial Park. The company was founded in 1977 by Alan “Mike” Plaisted, whose son Dean is now president. Soleras manufactures coatings used for items as disparate as compact discs and solar panels.

The company has grown since it first started, said Dean Plaisted, but a number of costs ”“ especially the high cost of health insurance for employees ”“ is one of the limiting factors for future growth.

Plaisted told Cutler that health care is his biggest cost of doing business. “I have no clue where it’s going,” he said.

His concerns are shared by Joseph Moreshead, president of Precision Screw Machine Products, Inc. on Gooch Street.

“My biggest concern is the cost of health care,” he told Cutler. He said this year the cost of insuring his employees increased 30 percent. “It’s just obscene what health care has done in the last decade.”

In addition to Soleras and Precision Screw, Cutler also visited Volk Packaging Corporation while in Biddeford.

These Biddeford small business owners are not alone in their concern about containing health insurance costs, said Cutler. He said it is a concern that he has heard echoed throughout the state as he has traveled in an attempt to find out about the issues weighing on the minds of Maine’s businessowners and ordinary residents .

The candidate believes he has some answers about how to rein in the high cost of health insurance in the state. The health care reform package passed by the U.S. Congress provides an opportunity to set up an insurance co-op for small businesses, he said. If small businesses could be bundled together and purchase insurance in a group, Cutler said, he believes costs would become more manageable.

In addition, the health insurance system should be designed around patients and providers, said Cutler, unlike the current system which is devised around insurance companies.

High health insurance rates aren’t the only concern of the state’s small business owners, he said. Electrical rates in the state are also high, said the nominee, and increase the cost of doing business in Maine, thereby making the state less competitive in attracting business.

If elected, Cutler said, he plans to create a publicly-owned business that would operate as a public power authority to generate and provide low-cost electricity.

Cutler sees the role of state government as “creating the conditions for employers to want to come to Maine.” His strategies for providing lower cost health insurance premiums to businesses and cutting electrical costs are part of his strategy to accomplish this.

Some of his other plans, if elected, include cutting government spending. Savings and efficiencies can be found in education and health and human services spending, said Cutler, which are the two areas in which three-quarters of the state budget is invested.

According to his campaign literature, some of Cutler’s strategies to cut back spending in education are to measure performance and efficiency in the K-12 public education system and use these measures “to incentivize and reward excellence and creativity.”

If he becomes the state’s next governor, another of Cutler’s plans is to shrink MaineCare and minimize what his literature calls “excessive overhead and administration costs” in the Department of Health and Human Services.

— Staff Writer Dina Mendros can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 324 or dmendros@journaltribune.com.