Editorials

VTDigger This commentary is by John Greenberg, a resident of Marlboro. I’m struggling to understand Anya Rader-Wallack’s commentary about OneCare. Ms. Wallack states that the purpose of OneCare is to replace fee-for-service medicine, which, she argues “is, in large part, responsible for the unsustainable growth in health care costs in the U.S.” But is it? […]

Brattleboro Reformer Ms. (Dr.?) Wallack states that the purpose of OneCare is to replace fee-for-service medicine, which she argues “is, in large part, responsible for the unsustainable growth in health care costs in the U.S.” But is it? If so, then why is Canadian medicine so much cheaper than ours, when it too relies on […]

VTDigger This commentary is by Dr. Deborah Richter, M.D., a practicing family physician in Cambridge, Vt. She lives in Montpelier. Legislative leaders have already laid out their agenda for this session. Despite the dire state of health care for the almost half of Vermonters under age 65 who are “underinsured,” it is clear that they […]

The Vermont Political Observer By John Walters If there was an organizational chart outlining America’s process for supplying and paying for health care, it would look something like this. It’s not a “system” as much as a mare’s nest that grows more and more complicated — and less efficient and increasingly unjust — over time. […]

VTDigger This commentary is by Ellen Oxfeld of Middlebury, a board member of Vermont Health Care for All. In the past few weeks, the mess of Vermont’s health care situation has been abundantly documented by numerous commentators to this publication. Even members of the Green Mountain Care Board recently questioned executives from OneCare, asking them […]

VTDIGGER This commentary is by Jack Mayer, M.D., MPH, of Middlebury, a retired pediatrician and writer who founded Rainbow Pediatrics in Middlebury in 1991. He has been a persistent critic of the private health care system in the United States. I’ve spent my professional life as a primary care pediatrician, mostly in Vermont. Now I’m […]

VTDigger This commentary is by Lee Russ of Bennington, a retired legal editor who was the lead editor/author of both the third edition of “Couch on Insurance” and the Attorneys Medical Advisor. Imagine a group of people watching a house burn. They are gathered around a fire hydrant and a hose is coiled at their […]

VTDigger This commentary was written by Laura Waters, am a retired environmental consultant living in South Burlington. I saw the recent article in VTDigger about the state employees union fighting the state’s plan to go to Medicare Advantage and felt compelled to respond with our recent experience. There are way too many glib sales pitches […]

Vermont Standard By Kurt Staudter Back in 2013, Governor Peter Shumlin took an obscure Burlington restaurateur and made him the Chairman and the business representative on the newly formed Green Mountain Care Board (GMCB). Al Gobeille was put in charge of our long-awaited move towards a single-payer, universal coverage, high quality healthcare system. Vermont would […]

Time Argus By Mary Alice Bisbee “A health care system that financially punishes the ill.” The above quote is one I found on the internet today. This is the system the United States of America has devised over many years. Does it make sense to you or anyone that we should penalize sick people for […]