Editorials

Vermont Political Observer Now that Crossover Day has come and gone, it’s now official: State lawmakers will consider giving themselves health care coverage but won’t consider the same for all the rest of us. On the Senate side, S.39 has emerged from the Government Operations Committee. It would significantly increase lawmakers’ pay from its current […]

VTDigger This commentary is by Ethan Parke of Montpelier, a former member of the Vermont Health Policy Council, a co-founder of Vermont Consumers’ Campaign for Health, and a current board member of Vermont Health Care for All.  The Senate Government Operations Committee has taken up S.39, which would “make members of the General Assembly eligible […]

Bennington Banner The Vermont Senate is discussing a bill S.39 that would make state legislators eligible for the state employees’ benefit plan at no cost to them. It would also provide legislators with child care reimbursement and pay for out-of-session work that is not currently compensated. The bill’s goal is to make serving in the […]

VTDigger This commentary is by John Greenberg, a resident of Marlboro. I’m struggling to understand Anya Rader-Wallack’s commentary about OneCare. Ms. Wallack states that the purpose of OneCare is to replace fee-for-service medicine, which, she argues “is, in large part, responsible for the unsustainable growth in health care costs in the U.S.” But is it? […]

Brattleboro Reformer Ms. (Dr.?) Wallack states that the purpose of OneCare is to replace fee-for-service medicine, which she argues “is, in large part, responsible for the unsustainable growth in health care costs in the U.S.” But is it? If so, then why is Canadian medicine so much cheaper than ours, when it too relies on […]

VTDigger This commentary is by Dr. Deborah Richter, M.D., a practicing family physician in Cambridge, Vt. She lives in Montpelier. Legislative leaders have already laid out their agenda for this session. Despite the dire state of health care for the almost half of Vermonters under age 65 who are “underinsured,” it is clear that they […]

The Vermont Political Observer By John Walters If there was an organizational chart outlining America’s process for supplying and paying for health care, it would look something like this. It’s not a “system” as much as a mare’s nest that grows more and more complicated — and less efficient and increasingly unjust — over time. […]

VTDigger This commentary is by Ellen Oxfeld of Middlebury, a board member of Vermont Health Care for All. In the past few weeks, the mess of Vermont’s health care situation has been abundantly documented by numerous commentators to this publication. Even members of the Green Mountain Care Board recently questioned executives from OneCare, asking them […]

VTDIGGER This commentary is by Jack Mayer, M.D., MPH, of Middlebury, a retired pediatrician and writer who founded Rainbow Pediatrics in Middlebury in 1991. He has been a persistent critic of the private health care system in the United States. I’ve spent my professional life as a primary care pediatrician, mostly in Vermont. Now I’m […]

VTDigger This commentary is by Lee Russ of Bennington, a retired legal editor who was the lead editor/author of both the third edition of “Couch on Insurance” and the Attorneys Medical Advisor. Imagine a group of people watching a house burn. They are gathered around a fire hydrant and a hose is coiled at their […]