By Anne Galloway on December 13, 2010 Vtdigger
On Monday Gov.-elect Peter Shumlin chose the members of his “dream team” who will lead his signature effort to create a single-payer health care system in Vermont.
Shumlin campaigned on the idea that a centralized, Medicare-style state medical plan would control the skyrocketing cost of health care in part by eliminating duplicative administrative costs. If Shumlin is able to pull it off, Vermont would be the first state in the nation to offer a universal health care benefit to all residents.
Shumlin told reporters at a press conference in Montpelier that the four administration officials he has selected have the expertise to help make a single-payer system possible in Vermont, in spite of the very difficult challenges of implementing an as yet-to-be-developed proposal that will likely meet stiff resistance from doctors, hospitals, the pharmaceutical industry and others.
Anya Rader Wallack will serve as a special assistant to the governor and lead the reform effort. Wallack, president of Arrowhead Health Analytics, has decades of experience in the health care industry. She has served as a president of the BlueCross BlueShield of Massachusetts Foundation, executive director of the Massachusetts Medicaid Policy Institute, and as a policy director and deputy chief of staff for Gov. Howard Dean.
Steve Kimbell, who recently retired from Kimbell Sherman Ellis, a prominent Montpelier-based public affairs firm, will be the commissioner of the Department of Banking, Insurance, Securities and Health Care Administration. Kimbell founded KSE in 1987 with Bob Sherman and ran the affiliated law firm Kimbell Storrow Buckley Hughes until his retirement in June. He managed statewide campaigns for Madeleine Kunin in 1978 and 1982.
Dr. Harry Chen, an emergency room physician with the Rutland Regional Medical Center, is the commissioner-designee for the Department of Health. Chen served four years in the Vermont House of Representatives.
Susan Besio, the current commissioner of the Department of Vermont Health Access, will continue to manage Vermont’s Medicaid, State Children’s Health Insurance Program, Catamount Health and VHAP. She previously served as deputy commissioner then commissioner of the Vermont Department of Developmental and Mental Health Services from 1996 to 2004. She was the director of planning and operations for the Agency of Human Services from 2004 to 2006.