Ideology trumps reality

Rutland Herald Regarding John McClaughry’s recent negative commentary in the Rutland Herald on Vermont’s Act 48, readers should keep the following in mind: As the ideological guru and founder of the Ethan Allen Institute (EAI) Mr. McClaughry, along other members of EAI, will almost always favor any so-called “free market” business enterprise over a government-run […]

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Pay up or die is our system

Rutland Herald Twenty thousand dollars. This was the hospital’s “going rate” for the operation I needed to stay alive. I knew the operation. I had already logged three of them for the liver disease (from natural causes) which had nearly killed me that year. I had health insurance through an employer. I lost this during […]

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McClaughry Offers No Solutions

The Herald of Randolph John McClaughry’s “VA Hospital Scandal Is a Warning Sign for Single-Payer” (6/26) draws a very sketchy conclusion. It’s one thing to criticize VA healthcare behavior that is, indeed, indefensible; it’s another thing altogether to try to tie that behavior to a “single payer” theme, then to Canadian healthcare in general, and […]

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Let’s get real

Times Argus This is about the article regarding the state providing data on health care costs in Thursday’s Times Argus. While it is applaudable to have that data, it will prove unusable until we get to a single-payer system. At the moment people are controlled by their insurance company to stay within the network. So […]

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Dancing, dodging and praying for health care is not the answer

The Caledonian Record To the Editor: John McLaughry’s Three Single Payer Health Care Systems (6/24) laments the state of VA healthcare, laments the state of Canadian healthcare and laments what he considers the inevitable failure of Vermont’s planned universal care system, Green Mountain Care. John McLaughry laments a lot. But John McLaughry doesn’t ever address […]

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Vermont BCBS vs. National VA system

Caledonian Record To the Editor: Your editorial, When Government Runs Health Care (June 18) should give readers cause to reflect on one of the virtues of changing to a universal health care system for Vermonters by comparing Blue Cross Blue Shield to the Veterans Administration. Vermont BCBS is by Vermont law, a not-for-profit insurer; that […]

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Settle for nothing less than single-payer

Burlington Free Press As we get closer to actually implementing Act 48, Vermont’s universal single-payer health care system in 2017, the pressure to dilute the act through compromise has proportionally increased. The extremely well-financed opponents of single-payer universal health care for whatever reason — be it self interest, ideology or party affiliation — have only […]

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Problem is at the top

The Times ArgusBy: Jerry Kilcourse, MontpelierThe recent article in The Times Argus by Peter Hirschfeld “Increases fuel single-payer debate” should call attention to our overly complicated and administratively heavy health care system. Until it is simplified with a universal/single-payer plan for all, health care costs will never be reduced or even contained. It is a systemic […]

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We need improved Medicare for all

Bennington BannerBy: G. RICHARD DUNDAS, Bennington We read in the Banner that as many as 40 Veterans may have died in Phoenix because they could not get needed care at the VA hospital. This is truly outrageous (surely an overused adjective but probably better than disgraceful). We must do better for our Veterans. Here is […]

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Ross cooks up bad recipe for healthcare

Bennington BannerBy: Lee Russ, BenningtonI read Weiland Ross’s April 29 column (Not a nothing burger) attacking Green Mountain Care (GMC) and could only shake my head. He says Vermont is currently providing good care to most of our people. If so, how does he explain the fact that the physicians most aware of what healthcare […]

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