Letters

As someone who struggled with access to health care during college, I firmly believe that health care should be treated as a public good. The last thing that college students should have to think about is whether they will be able to stay in school or pay for doctor visits and high priced medications. This […]

While in a meeting recently, the subject of the legislation regarding the single-payer health plan currently being worked on in the Vermont Legislature came up for discussion. I admitted to the group that I did not understand it or how it would work. Then my education began. I am sure I am not the only […]

(I am writing in response to Val Loureiro’s letter of April 13.) Take a look at health care. The writer cites longer waiting times, cuts in services, doctors leaving, and the possibility of smaller hospitals closing as the potential pitfalls of health system reform. I’m curious: Has Ms. Loureiro tried to access health care in […]

  My fellow physician, Dr. C.W. Cobb, asserts in his recent letter that under a single-payer system physicians would be taken for granted (Single-payer takes doctors for granted, March 30). Yes, single-payer systems take doctors for granted. They take for granted our education, training and experience. They take for granted our dedication to our patients. […]

  The recent WCAX news report on the meeting between IBM and other business executives and Gov. Peter Shumlin provided a chilling reminder of how government usually functions in the United States. The executives are shown entering the governor’s office smiling and bristling with confidence, and perhaps even a little arrogance, that they are the […]

Burlington Free Press Our current health care system is severely broken. We all know that. It is flagrantly wasteful of money. It is painfully unjust. The H.202 single-payer bill holds out the promise of being cost effective, and of fair solutions, e.g. equal access to health care regardless of diagnosis or social class. I urge […]

Rutland Herald Bill is major step forward Since 1993 the League of Women Voters of the U.S. has had an advocacy position calling for a national health insurance plan financed through general taxes. Until that happens, the LWV of Vermont believes a state program can and should provide such health care to the residents of […]

Rutland Herald I am writing this letter after reading John McClaughry’s column, “Single-payer: promise and reality.” John has got it wrong. As usual when people of his political belief try to justify their position, many times fear of the unknown is used to defend their argument. In H.202, as it passed out of the House […]

Rutland Herald    A lot of static is being generated to blind Vermonters to the truth of the universal health care program being developed in our Legislature. One of the biggest boogie men is the Canadian system, where people supposedly wait weeks for care and months for surgery. If any of this were accurate, how […]

(Rutland Herald) When all else fails, make people afraid of change. That apparently is the strategy of many opponents of any “universal” health care plan. For example, at a recent meeting at the Statehouse that I attended, an anesthesiologist compared universal coverage for Vermonters as leading the way to dictatorships similar to Hitler, Mao and […]