Letters

VTDigger To the Editor: I fully empathize with Rep. Ashely Bartley on losing her job and her health insurance after she became a legislator. This is reprehensible. This is, however, not unusual in Vermont. In fact, it is routine. I was also a victim of it. I once lost my job and my health insurance […]

VTDigger Dr. Ashley Miller extols the virtues of moving from a fee-for-service model to a capitated payment model and expresses concern that this will change if BlueCross BlueShield chooses to withdraw from OneCare Vermont. In view of this issue, it is worth noting that a universal primary care program in Vermont could utilize the same […]

Brattleboro Reformer To the editor: Vermont’s health care system is a “village on fire” and the villagers don’t even get a say on the matter. Media recently reported that “Two health provider groups brought alarming anecdotes and statistics to the House Committee on Health Care.” The testimony was sufficiently alarming that one legislator compared Vermont’s […]

VTDigger As we are all being told by OneCare about how wonderful value-based care is, why do I as a consumer/patient feel like it is just another trick or scam to keep us dependent on very expensive administrative oversight that is not needed? Medical providers need to have the independence to make their own decisions […]

Rutland Herald In the letter “Crisis? What crisis?” (Jan. 3) Lodiza LePore of Bennington wrote “The Vermont Department of Financial Regulation reportedly says there are around 30,000 Vermonters with medical debt in collections and tens of thousands more who are paying down medical bills that have not reached collections.” To have so many in debt […]

VTDigger Wouldn’t it be nice if our Vermont health care committees, in both the House and Senate, would prioritize — along with child care benefits for everyone, not just those who belong to large businesses and corporations that can afford to give their employees benefits of all kinds — state-based universal health care for all […]

VTDigger I briefly read the article on the legislative health committees’ plan of action. This is what I hear as a low-income, mentally disabled constituent of Vermont’s poor and vulnerable population. You’re going to start spending the opioid money from the poor and vulnerables’ overdose deaths on five crisis stations throughout the whole state, requiring […]

Rutland Herald To the Editor: The priorities of the legislative health committees in both the Vermont House and Vermont Senate were recently reviewed in the media. Apparently, neither committee’s plans involve dealing with the state’s crisis in health care, which I had thought would be a priority for committees tasked with health. Why would I […]

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 […]