Letters to the Editor (BFP)
Keep reform focus
on single-payer bills
Rep. Paul Poirier is considering a bill that would require all Vermonters who are not covered by Medicare, Medicaid or other public programs to purchase private insurance. However, to call this proposal a "single-payer" proposal, or even to say that it might lead to a single-payer system, is misleading.
It is true that Rep. Poirer is advocating rolling all state plans (Medicaid, VHAP, Dr. Dynasaur and Catamount) into one system. But that is not a "single-payer" system and should not be confused with a nonprofit, publicly funded system that would include all Vermonters.
"Single-payer" refers to a system in which health care is financed by the public and everybody is included. It ends the system of multiple private payers and the administrative overhead it creates (not to mention the money wasted when funds go to things like executive bonuses rather than to health care). It also ends the system in which many people are underinsured — because the only private insurance they can afford has high deductibles and copays. A real single-payer system can achieve universality by including all of us in one publicly funded plan, and it can control costs by reducing the administrative overhead and waste of our current system.
Two single-payer bills (H.100 and S.88) have already been proposed, and these are what our lawmakers in Montpelier should be considering in the 2010 legislative session.
ELLEN OXFELD
Middlebury