By, Dr. Deb Richter, Vermont for Single Payer
This week Vermont was blessed with the presence of Dr. William Hsiao, the
economist from Harvard who designed the Taiwan health care system in
1995. At that time in Taiwan almost half the population was uninsured.
Within a year of implementation of the single payer program designed by
Dr. Hsiao the rate of uninsured dropped from 45% to 5%, and within two years
costs had dropped 8-10%. Currently Taiwan spends only 6% of its GDP for
a world class health care system accessible to all.
Dr. Hsiao praised Vermont’s efforts thus far and stated we were leading
the nation in our reform efforts. However, he likened our reform efforts
to pieces of beautiful fabric waiting for someone to weave them into a
quilt. In other words we have a bunch of programs but no system to
embrace them in a coordinated operation. Dr. Hsiao answered “Yes” when
asked whether he thought Vermont could build its own health care system.
He was optimistic that we could sequester the waivers needed to do so.
He received a well-deserved standing ovation. We can only hope that Dr.
Hsiao is hired by the state government to design a health care system
for Vermont.
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