[“Urgent Scare: The Price of Health Care Plans in Vermont Has Doubled in Six Years. The Prognosis for Cost Containment Is Grim,” November 6] flatly states that “former governor Peter Shumlin’s yearslong pursuit of a single-payer model imploded in 2014 after he learned how much it would cost and abandoned the effort.” Is that true?
Shumlin’s description of single-payer as unaffordable referred to the amount of money that would have to be raised through taxes. It took no account of the offsetting savings in eliminating insurance premiums. Shumlin did make one statement that compared the overall “costs” of health care had single-payer been implemented: “At a growth rate of four percent, GMC would yield savings of $378 Million over the first five years of the program relative to current predicted trends.” And Shumlin acknowledged that this calculation had not even taken account of reductions in administrative costs under a single-payer plan.
The statement about saving $378 million was made in the announcement that Shumlin was aborting the single-payer plan. It’s a strange world in which saving $378 million over five years is too costly.
Lee Russ
Bennington