Vermont for Single Payer

Kathy Keitkamp, Nurse, Weybridge

Once again, my husband and I are without health insurance. We are waiting to hear if we qualify for Green Mountain Care or any other program. My husband, a self-employed contractor, who had been sub-contracting, was laid off. He is just beginning to work again, and hopefully build back his previous business. We had self-paid our insurance, because of my health issues. I have a re-current cancer. When my husband was laid off we no longer could pay for the health insurance. Now, we feel as if we wasted our money, since we ended up without being able to afford health insurance again.

Tara Meyer, Nurse Practitioner, Burlington

I was in my last semester of my Family Nurse Practitioner program at UVM. Vermont has a program called Ladies First, which basically covers some preventive care (like mammograms) for women without health insurance. When I was a new student I thought this was great– “Wow, in Vermont, all women theoretically have access to preventive services.” But one day at the clinic, a patient came in who had previously applied for Ladies First because she had no health insurance. She had been denied because she had a modest house and some family land (that had been passed through her family for generations) so she did not qualify for the program because she was technically over the income/asset limit (even though she did not make a lot of money by any measure). So she kept putting off going to her primary care provider. Consequently, she presented this day with a lump in her breast that had been there for a little while, which ended up being Stage IV breast cancer– basically a very bad diagnosis.

She was referred immediately to an oncologist and started chemotherapy and radiation. [...]

Meredith Roberts, Nurse, Williston

Many part time nurses do not have benefits. I have seen many nurses at hospitals working when not feeling well, in order to feed their families and pay for medications for their family.

Consider the issue of inadequate nurse faculty. At VTC, part of VSC, part time faculty get NO benefits at all, and countless new staff have transitioned away from teaching because they can not afford to stay, and risking the cost of illness with no insurance. I suspect this is true across the VSC system.

Virgina Hood, MD (nephrologist)

We must at have a system that provides affordable, available, portable, ongoing, comprehensive quality care for all and one that can cover its costs. This requires EVERYONE paying in according to their means not their needs and everyone being able to receive care according to their needs and not their means. It also requires a system that allows easy transitions as people move among employers and in and out of employment.

While there may be other solutions that accomplish these goals, the single payer seems to be one able to do so. I agree we need [...]

Tristin Adie, RN, Burlington

I am a registered nurse at Fletcher Allen Health Care, and I am a recent graduate of the University of Vermont’s nurse practitioner program. I plan to join a primary care practice in the coming months.

I favor bills S. 88/H. 100, which aim to create a “Medicare for All” system here in Vermont. Having closely studied the issues, and reflected on my experiences with patients in a variety of settings, I feel that a “single-payer,” or Medicare for All, system is the only solution to the severe crisis we face in health care.

No one can dispute that we face a crisis, both locally [...]

Peggy Sapphire, Craftsbury
My husband and I have Medicare & Aetna, but Aetna has no preferred provider network in Vermont. We live in VT on a fixed Social Security pension.
Five years ago my husband was diagnosed with bladder cancer. His treatment began with a Barre,VT urologist, and within 2 years we’d incurred such significant debt as [...]

Gina Mazer, Montpelier
I have a chronic, genetic illness called Gaucher’s Disease, which means I need to receive an infusion of an enzyme that I am missing on a monthly or twice a month basis, at the hospital. This replacement enzyme (called Cerezyme) is extremely expensive, so much so that if my insurance has a lifetime [...]

Anonymous

I want to highlight some examples of how easy it is to be marginalized from access to healthcare in the State of Vermont. As someone who has an auto-immune disease I can not risk losing my insurance. At present I am eligible for coverage under my partner’s employer, but without that option I would be paying almost $800 per month under the COBRA option. With no income and having to cover food and housing I would not be able to afford that insurance. And at present, if I dared to go without insurance for any period of time, I would not be able to find insurance in the future. [I would be refused for my pre-existing conditions.] [...]