AUGUSTA - Business interests meeting today are expected to go ahead with a referendum challenge to a new funding mechanism for Maine's Dirigo Health program.

"I don't think there's any question they're going to do it," said Maine State Chamber of Commerce President Dana Connors.

To meet Dirigo's roughly $50 million annual operating budget, the pending law replaces an indeterminate savings offset payment targeting insurers with a 1.8 percent surcharge on paid claims. It also imposes new taxes on beer, wine and soda at the distributor level and taps surplus funds from the Fund for a Healthy Maine, the state's repository for tobacco settlement money.