Letter published in the Times Argus on October 9, 2009:
I want to thank Louis Porter of the Vermont Press Bureau for his story "Slow Pace of health care reform sparks ire" about the health care as a human right forum held on Sept. 22 at the Montpelier High School. The article speaks for itself, about how Liz Zundel and I testified on our experiences within the current system to an audience of between 80 and a 100 people and a panel of legislators from around Washington County.
It also described how these forums are being held around the state, that this is a statewide campaign organized by the Vermont Worker’s Center Health Care as a Human Right Campaign to bring about a single-payer (publicly financed) health care system to include all citizens, from the governor to the dishwasher. Everyone agreed that with the glacial pace of the much-needed reform that there should, as representative Tony Klein, D-East Montpelier said "simply be a revolution."
Thankfully, this forum saw none of the explosives that characterized other meetings about health care reform here and around the country. Instead, there was honesty, openness, respect. I really appreciated this, especially the legislators’ candor with themselves, us speakers, and the people in the audience.
"We are the problem," Rep. Paul Poirier, D-Barre City, said. "We tell you we are going to do something and we do not deliver."
Poirier is also one of the sponsors of H100, the single-payer bill that the health care is a human right campaign is pushing for.
"But I can tell you it is never going to go anywhere, it’s a political reality," Poirier said.
Liz and I disagree with this statement. With the same sincerity that all of us that night, citizen and citizen-legislator alike, exhibited with each other we can succeed in making health care as a human right for all where no one in the future must confront the awful decisions that Liz and I had to make when they need medical care.
Walter Carpenter
Montpelier