Letters

VTDigger To the Editor, The gubernatorial debate which I watched Wednesday night was very powerful and both candidates are to be applauded for a job well done! However, one question about health care and the state employees not wanting a Medicare Advantage plan for retirees showed the governor’s acceptance of the total privatization of Medicare […]

Brattleboro Reformer To the editor: The ongoing crisis in hospital budgets has the University of Vermont Health Network feuding with the Green Mountain Care Board. Both claim to be concerned with how their budget decisions will affect everyday Vermonters. The fact is that everyday Vermonters are once again getting the shaft regardless of which side […]

Caledonian Record To the Editor: The ongoing crisis in hospital budgets has the University of Vermont Health Network feuding with the Green Mountain Care Board. Both claim to be concerned with how their budget decisions will affect everyday Vermonters. The fact is that everyday Vermonters are once again getting the shaft regardless of which side […]

VTDigger To the Editor: Every indicator says we are rapidly approaching the implosion of health care in Vermont and probably the nation. The 2021 Vermont Household Health Insurance Survey indicates that 38% of Vermonters under age 65 are underinsured, as are 32.3% of those on Medicare. Since the Green Mountain Care Board has again approved […]

VTDigger Will you be able to afford double-digit rate increases of your health insurance in 2023? If not, please write to Governor Scott and your legislators! As reported in VTDigger, the Green Mountain Care Board voted Thursday for these double-digit increases for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont and MVP Health. “Enrollees who get their […]

Caledonian Record Kevin Mullin, chair of the Green Mountain Care Board (GMCB), called our state’s health insurance premiums “unaffordable” in 2019.  Those premiums have since risen, and double digit-plus increases were just approved for both Blue Cross and MVP, making health care far more unaffordable. Our hospitals are requesting major increases in their budgets that […]

VTDigger The Green Mountain Care Board just approved double-digit rate hikes for Blue Cross Blue Shield and MVP Health. Blue Cross gets an 11.7% rate hike for small businesses and an 11.4% increase for individual and family coverage. MVP gets an 18.3% hike for small group plans and 19.3% for individual and family plans. Is […]

VTDigger Bill Schubart’s excellent commentary “It’s past time to rethink how Vermont health care is evolving” shows how much we lost when then-Gov. Shumlin killed Act 48, our universal health care program. When he and the Democrats abandoned Act 48 back in December 2014, shortly after Shumlin nearly lost an election that he should have […]

Bennington Banner By Tevye Kelman and Manny Mansbach Tevye Kelman lives in Washington and Manny Mansbach lives in Athens. Both are members of the Vermont Workers’ Center. The opinions expressed by columnists do not necessarily reflect the views of the Bennington Banner. As health care and other living costs spiral ever further out of people’s reach, […]

VTDigger The Vermont Supreme Court’s decision to side with OneCare over our state auditor, Doug Hoffer, made me wonder if our Supreme Court is following the U.S. Supreme Court in protecting the powerful and the wealthy from democracy. This decision was rendered in the suit brought by OneCare against our state auditor concerning his request […]