Letters

Mountain Times Dear Editor, In response to Mr. Emerson Lynn’s guest editorial “The Peril of OneCare’s failure,” which ran in the Nov. 30-Dec. 6 editon of the Mountain Times, OneCare’s failure would hardly impact Vermont’s health care because it has always been a failure to begin with. I commend Green Mountain Care Board (GMCB) members […]

Mountain Times Dear Editor, As you may have heard or read, The University of Vermont is now pushing a medicare “advantage” plan in partnership with MVP health care, a local non-profit we are told in direct competition with more affordable traditional medicare plans. Additionally and to their discredit, rather than promoting what civilized nations around […]

VTDigger Democratic Party head Jim Dandeneau is certainly correct that “Vermonters care about being able to support themselves and their families,” yet he strangely omits our state’s health care nightmare from his list of “Vermonters’ agenda” items. We suffer from a growing doctor shortage and lengthy waits for an appointment. The state’s own survey indicates […]

VTDigger I heartily thank Green Mountain Care Board members Owen Foster and Thom Walsh for their pointed grilling of OneCare’s highly paid executives for one piece of evidence that OneCare has done any good for Vermonters. As Owen Foster, the care board’s new chair, said, “Vermonters, either through taxpayer-funded health care groups, out-of-pocket expenses, copays […]

VTDigger Hey, everything you say is true. The problem: we live in a capitalist, profit-driven economic system. That’s all. Unless you take capital out of the conversation, it cannot and never will change. Spending less money on health won’t make anyone more money — hard stop right there. As you correctly pointed out, playing at […]

VTDigger “Insurance companies and other brokers are making false or misleading claims to dupe senior citizens into purchasing Medicare Advantage plans,” according to a recent U.S. Senate Finance Committee report. The report — which comes as we are being flooded with paid internet ads, postal mailings, telephone calls, and TV and radio promotions — states […]

Times Argus The recent urging by UVM Medical Center’s overwhelmed ER that patients seek treatment elsewhere largely reflects the shortage of primary care. You cannot resolve routine problems and complaints with your primary-care clinician if you do not have one … and there are massive waiting lists to get one. Primary care has become an […]

VTDigger This commentary is by Walter Carpenter of Montpelier, who works in Vermont’s tourism business and is a writer and a health care activist. In 2006, at the point of death, he says, he had to shop around and negotiate the price of his life because he did not have insurance. I was excessively appalled […]

VTDigger The recent urging by UVM Medical Center’s overwhelmed ER that patients seek treatment elsewhere largely reflects the shortage of primary care. You cannot resolve routine problems and complaints with your primary care clinician if you do not have one — and there are massive waiting lists to get one. Primary care has become an […]

Rutland Herald Apparently, real health care would be too un-American. The recent news that UVM Medical Center ER was so overwhelmed, patients were being urged to seek treatment elsewhere marks quite an accomplishment for Vermont. By creating a system of health care that now features incredibly long waits, and emergency rooms so overwhelmed they are […]