Shap Smith’s appointment against the law (RH)
Naming Leddy violates law Shap Smith, speaker of the Vermont House of Representatives and a lawyer practicing in Burlington, is not above the law and therefore will need to rescind his appointment of Jim Leddy, president of AARP in Vermont, a health insurer, to the state’s Health Care Commission. The law recently passed known as S.88 clearly states that the “two non-voting members with experience in health care shall not be in the employ of or holding any official relation to any health care provider or insurer or be engaged in the management of a health care provider or insurer” among other clauses (see page 10, b(1), (2) A,B C,D), which rules out Mr. Leddy’s appointment. We are further dismayed that Speaker Smith is quoted defending this appointment in today’s Burlington Free Press. Regardless of Mr. Leddy’s personal qualifications, we think that a lawyer would know he must uphold the absolute letter of the law. Clearly the law is not followed; we hope that the Vermont attorney general, William Sorrell, will look into this matter. We who have worked long and hard for the passage of S.88 through all its changing forms remain vigilant as the process outlined in the law goes forward into the next stage of selecting a person with experience who is capable of designing a single-payer health care system as one of the options outlined in the law.
ANN RAYNOLDS Pomfret