Editorials

Editorial, Rutland Herald The Shumlin administration is energetically selling its health care plan even before it has drawn up its details, which often means fielding questions from the public that still have no answers. Gov. Peter Shumlin and others were in Rutland this week for a forum to talk about the health care reforms that […]

Truthout Op-EdBy Jim Hightower We have a problem, said House Speaker Shap Smith of Vermont. We need to solve it. This comment reflects a no-nonsense, hands-on, can-do attitude you rarely find in legislative bodies these days. Instead, when most so-called leaders are confronted with a problem, they tend to say, We need to cover it […]

Burlington Free Press Written by Ellen Oxfeld Gov. Peter Shumlin signed the new health care bill into law Thursday. Many people may wonder how we came to this point. Why is it that Vermont is the first state to pass legislation that acknowledges that health care is a public good, and that the best route […]

Rutland Herald By John L. Franco Jr. In a recent opinion piece, Republican Rutland City Treasurer Wendy Wilton critiqued the analysis of potential single-payer costs and savings developed for the Vermont Legislature by Harvard economist William Hsiao. Ms. Wilton purports to “prove” that a single-payer program in Vermont will be doomed from the start. Her […]

Vermont is a land of proud firsts. This small, New England state was the first to join the 13 Colonies. Its constitution was the first to ban slavery. It was the first to establish the right to free education for all — public education. Today, Vermont will boast another first: the first state in the […]

I am a medical doctor, semi-retired living in Vermont and having a limited practice. Prior to moving to Vermont two and a half years ago I practiced full time, dividing my practice between the Detroit area in Michigan and Windsor, Ontario, an hour drive from Detroit. Thus I have a substantial personal knowledge of medical […]

Brattleboro Reformer By Ellen Oxfeld Let’s hope Vermont is looking in the rear-view mirror at the coronavirus pandemic. Have we learned anything about health care? Most people agree that Vermont did better than most states at controlling the spread of the virus, and now, with 80% of the eligible population having received at least one […]

VTDigger This commentary is by Marvin Malek, M.D., who also holds a master’s degree in public health and is an internist/hospitalist at Springfield (Vt.) Hospital. This week brought two milestones in the Covid pandemic: The Covid death toll in the U.S. reached 688,000. 675,000 is the best estimate of the number of U.S. deaths that […]

VTDigger By Michelle O’Donnell Last July, I packed into a room in Montpelier City Hall for the Green Mountain Care Board hearing, where they would decide whether to approve a requested rate increase from Blue Cross Blue Shield and MVP. After listening to hours of moving testimony of people directly affected by high health insurance […]