Letters

Rutland Herald Although Jim Leddy, the representative of the AARP members to the national organization, is a principled man, one question not yet answered is “Why appoint him?” AARP is a billion-dollar-a-year business, with $600 million of its revenue generated by merchandising — and AARP gets 10 percent on the premiums it generates through policy […]

Shap Smith’s appointment against the law (RH) Naming Leddy violates law Shap Smith, speaker of the Vermont House of Representatives and a lawyer practicing in Burlington, is not above the law and therefore will need to rescind his appointment of Jim Leddy, president of AARP in Vermont, a health insurer, to the state’s Health Care […]

Need a good health planner (Rutland Herald) Now that S.88 has become law, we will need a good architect to design a health care system for Vermont that is universal and can contain costs. Your editorial of May 23 mentions professor William Hsiao of the Harvard University School of Public Health. Professor Hsiao testified before […]

(Rutland Herald) The Vermont Legislature recently passed S.88, a health care reform bill. Vermont and Massachusetts have led the nation in health care reforms. These reforms have not been perfect, but are steps in the right direction. The 2010 federal health care bill was based in part on the Massachusetts model (signed by Mitt Romney) […]

Rutland Herald We Americans are alone among the citizens of the industrialized nations of the modern world to constrict access to affordable, quality health care for all of our people, denying it to many in fact. The corporations whose enormous profits flow from the present system (or a new one that would guarantee their advantage) […]

What Burton Actually Said (BFP) There he goes again. Burton’s decision to move its manufacturing jobs to Austria led the governor to say that taxes need to be rolled back. But the CEO said nothing about state taxes, which are a very small component of business costs (and of course we have no idea how […]

Published: March 18, 2010 (Rutland Herald) The Rutland Herald has published two letters from Michael and Judy Olinick relating to Vermonters’ access to health care. These letters have been followed each time by an answer by Ralph Colin. I believe the Olinicks’ first letter was a statement offered for readers to consider on the merits […]

Rutland Herald Replying to our March 4 letter, Ralph Colin asks us to explain how an individual state can adopt a single-payer health plan without overthrowing the federal government or eliminating the requirement that businesses contribute toward health insurance (or health care) for their employees. Neither we nor any single-payer supporters we know advocate overthrowing […]

Rutland Herald It should be clear now that whatever anemic health care bill President Obama wrings out of Congress will be a mockery of the thoroughgoing reform he promised during his campaign. The bill may include a few improvements to the current system, but there is no chance that it will achieve the goal of […]

Times Argus We have more than enough evidence that a single-payer system is the most fiscally conservative way to cover all Americans, yet Congress has refused to consider it seriously. People are dying from lack of access, businesses are failing while trying to pay for benefits for their employees and the U.S. economy is straining […]