Colossal Wastefulness

Rutland Herald Last week I received several pages from Medicare which purported to explain benefits they were or were not covering for visits I and my wife had made to our doctor last April. Finding them difficult to understand (references to charges not covered because they were hospital, not doctor’s office procedures, when we had […]

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Need single payer now

Caledonian Record To the Editor: I chuckled at the editorial Getting it Good and Hard in the Aug. 3 edition of the Caledonian Record. The heading is beautiful, though imprecisely timed. It should have been written before the era of Green Mountain Care Board, Vermont Health Connect, and Obamacare, such as it is. Then the […]

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McClaughry misses the point

Rutland Herald Mr. McClaughry missed the point of my letter concerning his latest commentary. Constitutional questions and semantics (tax or fine, etc.) aside, his proposal for the uninsured was similar to ACA (Obamacare) in spite of his political ideology. Both favor using of the taxing power of the IRS, in their own way, to encourage […]

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Health Care Reform Hardly Ambitious

Burlington Free Press Thanks much to Aki Soga for his editorial “A Worthy Experiment” (July 20) where he discusses “Vermont’s ambitious efforts to reform the health insurance system.” The word “ambitious” is interesting here. The rest of the democratic/technological world has for decades had such health systems in place which Vermont is now striving so […]

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Controlling rising costs

Rutland Herald Regarding your recent editorial on the alarmingly high cost of childbirth in the United States as compared to other industrialized countries, a few more observations can be added about the continuing high cost of health care in the United States that these childbirth costs exemplify. First, most other countries put their hospitals on […]

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Why Health Care Costs So Much

Valley News To the Editor: Regarding your editorial on end-of-life care and the findings of the Dartmouth Atlas, (“End-of-Life Care and Costs,” June 18) a few observations are in order about the continuing high cost of health care. Some people blame overutilization, and by extension blame fee-for-service by saying that it encourages physicians to order […]

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Single-payer worth the struggle

Burlington Free Press Thank you for Donald MacDonald’s May 15 letter on health care. He is right. Single-payer will be one of the best things to happen in Vermont and, with luck and determination, across the country. That doesn’t mean there will be an easy, seamless transition. How could there be? Moving from domination of […]

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Exchange is not single payer

Rutland Herald   The May 27 Times Argus article on page one unfortunately adds to the confusion concerning the changes in health care for small businesses, various individuals, and families starting in 2014. The article mixes up “Green Mountain Care” with “Vermont Health Connect”. Green Mountain Care is Vermont’s single-payer health care plan. Vermont Health […]

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How to monitor single payer

Rutland Herald   The Green Mountain Care Board is considering how best to ensure oversight of Vermont’s new health care system. In 2005, the League of Women Voters of Vermont adopted a strong advocacy position in support of a single-payer health care system for Vermont. The league considered several oversight models, including legislative oversight as […]

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Let’s move toward freedom from want

Burlington Free Press   Single-payer health care is one of the best things to happen in Vermont and the nation. It ranks with legislation such as Social Security, Rural Electrification, Land Grant Colleges, Homestead Act, GI Bill, to name a few. Where would we be without the Interstate Highway System? You can take the old […]

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