Hold to beliefs on health care

Rutland Herald Peter Shumlin won the popular vote. Presumably, many of us voted for him in part because we support his vigorous efforts to move Vermont to a single-payer system, removing insurance company profits from the equation of health care costs. This is simply an excellent way to pay for health care, for all Vermonters […]

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Be Afraid of Incorrect Information

The Valley Reporter By concerned Medicare recipients. Be afraid …be very afraid! But be sure you don’t do any research to learn the facts. Vermont seniors are being told that if Vermont’s single-payer health care (Green Mountain Care) becomes law in 2017, we’re all in jeopardy of losing or seeing drastically reduced Medicare and Medicare […]

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Spreading fear

Valley ReporterBy Walter Carpenter I would like to respond to the My View commentary Green Mountain Care and Medicare (The Valley Reporter, 10/30/14) by Gene Bifano. Unfortunately, it is difficult within the brief span of a letter to call all the bluffs this piece makes in order to attempt to deliver its true intent: spreading […]

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Laughed off the stage

The Valley Reporter By Chuck Gregory Gene Bifano’s piece (Green Mountain Care and Medicare, 11/6/14) is being laughed off the stage by us seniors. Anybody who believes AARP is better than socialism does not know AARP. Rather than fight to protect us against the destruction of Medicare, it supported the Republicans’ attempt in 2003 to […]

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Single-Payer Can Be Done

Valley News “Single-Payer Supporters Push Ahead” (front page, Nov. 6) has it just right. We do not see Gov. Shumlin’s near-defeat as a referendum on health care reform at all. Vermonters are hungry for a universal, simplified and less costly system and so are many of our leaders in the state Senate and House of […]

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In defense of ‘single payer’

Times Argus I am very upset that people think that the narrow vote for Shumlin is a vote against single payer. It might be a vote against the present health care system (or lack thereof) but I do not see it as a vote against single payer. Single payer and the present system have nothing […]

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Oops

Time Argus In his recent op-ed decrying rising health care costs, Don George says Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont is a nonprofit whose guiding principle is “putting Vermonters first.” Oops. He forgot to mention that his predecessor took a $7.9 million bonus when he left. To put that in perspective, for my current $1,240 […]

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Scare tactics on health care

Rutland Herald Just a few days before the Nov. 4 election, a very misleading and untruthful campaign brochure was mailed to the constituents of some Rutland County legislative districts. It was designed to make Medicare recipients fear that their health benefits would be taken over by Governor Shumlin’s health reform efforts and they might not […]

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Single-Payer No Medicare Threat

Addison Independent Recent letters and news stories have expressed the fear that a Vermont based single-payer system would be a threat to Medicare. This is simply untrue and here is why. The law that set Vermont on the path to single payer specifies on its very first page that Green Mountain Care will cover all […]

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Legislature must continue toward single-payer goal

Addison Independent My name is Suzanne Boyle. I am retired now and have Medicare plus a Supplemental Health Insurance Plan — USAA, a nonprofit healthcare plan. However, it wasn’t always this simple. I lived 30 years in Connecticut, raising three children as a single parent, working at Cigna Insurance, attending night college courses for nine […]

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