To the Editor: Kaj Sansom’s “Judge health care policy by its results,” works best if you read it quickly and don’t pause to think. He says the governor’s executive order on healthcare actually is “the beginning of a new, more honest conversation about what is working — and what is not.” But an “honest” conversation would include—start with—what is actually working throughout the world; universal healthcare.
Sansom touts setting premiums by age, noting that all but two states allow this. But if that that approach is working in those states why are healthcare costs outrageously unaffordable nationwide? What would we accomplish by merely lowering Vermont’s healthcare costs to a still unaffordable level?
An honest approach cannot ignore the fact that universal healthcare works better than the dismal, fractured system we have. While Sansom says Vermont’s effort to achieve universal care “was abandoned due to fiscal realities,” the abortion of that effort came with then Governor Shumlin’s assessment that it would save $378 million over the first 5 years of operation.
The governor’s approach will not give Vermonters the affordable choices and better opportunities we deserve.
Lee Russ, Bennington