Vermont for Single Payer

By: Ethan Parke, VT for Single Payer, Supporter
The federal health care legislation that is about to become law does more harm than good and should be scrapped. That is the position now taken by the Physicians for a National Health Program. It’s also the position of the executive director of [...]

By: Laurie Essig, VT for Single Payer, Supporter

The inability of the U.S. health care system or the federal government to deliver free and fair access to the threat of a pandemic flu should have Americans angry and demanding universal coverage.
Yesterday my daughters and I went to a vaccination center in [...]

Senator Bernie Sanders introduced his single payer amendment on the floor of the Senate yesterday. Here is his news report and a link to the amendment.

This would have replaced the current health care bill with a single payer universal health care system for the entire nation. It would have been the first time single payer legislation was debated on the floor of the Senate. Republicans obstructed this effort by insisting that the entire 700 page bill be read before discussion could begin. As a result Senator Sanders withdrew the amendment. His response to this outrage was a brilliantly articulated speech about why we need a single payer system. I encourage you all to listen to it. We can be proud to have Bernie Sanders as our Senator. Let us now be inspired to work to get single payer legislation passed in the state of Vermont.

By: Dr. Deb Richter

Vermont’s Banking Insurance Securities Health Care Administration (BISHCA) is finally looking into the $7 million golden parachute retirement package awarded to the retiring Vermont CEO of Blue Cross (Take It Back). Insurance companies are a big part of our current health care industry but it is questionable if their role benefits us. What would really benefit us is $7 million. Here are some ways it could improve health care in Vermont.

• A study by UVM’s* Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) has determined that Vermont needs 54 more primary care physicians to meet its current shortage. $7 million could fund 47 primary care physicians for one year. Each physician serves roughly 1200 patients amounting to a potential of 56,000 more Vermonters getting primary care. This would put quite a dent into the primary care shortage (Times Argus).
• $7 million could fund more than 300 home health aides for one year. These are the health care workers that allow seniors to stay in their homes when they are unable to care for themselves.
• The Times Argus reports that “Medicaid will under-fund the actual cost of providing care for nursing home patients in Vermont by nearly $12 million.” $7 million could cover more than half of the projected Medicaid shortage this year.
• Like many states Vermont has a shortage of dentists. $7 million could fund 42 dentists for one year.

Many of you will know of health care programs that would benefit from $7 million. So post your ideas. Then imagine if we had a single-payer health care system what we could do with upwards of $500 million it would save from unnecessary administrative costs.

When Con Hogan, former Secretary of Human Services under two Governors (Richard Snelling and Howard Dean), talks about our health care industry, he is clear we must improve it. But he also identifies some challenges in doing this. He points out that our legislators may fear undertaking the task of creating a single payer system [...]

It is likely to be a lively legislative session as this article in the Times Argus and Rutland Herald illustrates. At least four bills will get a hearing in this session. Two of these bills deserve our support.

This week Senator Doug Racine, Chair of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee, announced a public hearing to begin the process of building a new health care system. The hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, January 12, 2010. It will be a joint hearing with the House Health Care Committee and will look at S.88 and [...]

Vermonters are beginning to recognize that the national legislation, while a blessing to many states like Texas and Mississippi, with high rates of uninsured, will likely end up doing very little for Vermont. In fact it may even costs Vermonters more than had they done nothing as noted in this article: Medicaid changes could cost Vermont. What do you think; would national legislation help Vermont?

Check out this video by some of the people who were in the movie Sicko.

It shows what the proposed system would or wouldn’t do to address the problems that caused them or their loved ones to die, go bankrupt or be denied services.