Burlington Freepress
Ellen Oxfeld, Middlebury. Ellen is a member of the Vermont Health Care for All Board of Directors.
In March, Senate President John Campbell backed away from an unwavering commitment to the historic task set out in Act 48 — creating a publicly funded guaranteed health care system for all Vermonters.
Campbell’s stated reason for this was disappointing. He demurred that he was not sure that a single-payer financing plan would be “politically viable” in the Legislature because of the “costs” of single payer. Then, in April, Sen. Tim Ashe and House Speaker Shap Smith said that they were interested in alternatives to publicly financed health care for all.
These legislative leaders need to reconsider. It’s true that financing a single-payer plan will cost about $2 billion. But that is less than we Vermonters are already paying (In fact, in 2012, we Vermonters paid $2.6 billion in private premiums and out of pockets for our health care).
There’s something else these leaders need to consider about going down the road to some kind of “Plan B.” While successfully enacting an equitable and viable single-payer financing package will not be easy and will take political courage, the facts support moving forward, not giving up before even trying. After all, in five official studies commissioned since 2001 by the state of Vermont, the conclusion has always been the same — there is no other way to guarantee health care for all Vermonters while containing costs other than a publicly financed (“single payer”) system.
In fact, we already have an alternate plan in place — the Affordable Care Act. And, although that act has certainly helped some individuals to purchase private insurance, it still leaves in place our multi-tiered system of different private plans, with different levels of coverage and the expenses created by the complex administration of such a system. Deductibles and co-pays can still be prohibitive in this system and deter people from seeking needed care. If people change jobs, lose jobs, or experience changes in financial status they can also lose their coverage.
The bottom line is that only a publicly funded health care system of the sort the Shumlin administration is proposing can guarantee access to health care for all regardless of job status, income, age, marital situation or any other of life’s many changes. Health care — guaranteed!
In the past, Sen. Campbell has been a leader on many issues, such as marriage equality and in passing Act 48, the 2011 roadmap legislation for single payer. And Speaker Smith was, in fact, the leader of the House when Act 48, Vermont’s roadmap to single payer was originally passed. They have clearly demonstrated their leadership skills throughout several legislative sessions.
Act 48 was not passed on a fanciful whim. It passed because it built upon two decades of experience and numerous studies. Alternatives to a publicly financed health care plan for all were studied and tried, but none offered the possibility of both universality and cost control. Publicly financed systems throughout the world surpass our present system by guaranteeing access to health care for all while simplifying administration and containing costs effectively. The vision of guaranteed health care and an affordable health care system can be reached in Vermont. Vermonters will be ill served if our political leaders step away from the roadmap laid out in Act 48, which they voted for and passed.