By Matt Holderman, Ben Breen
MIDDLEBURY, Vt. (ABC22/FOX44) – Nine communities passed a question on Town Meeting Day calling on the legislature to take up H.433, a bill that would establish a universal healthcare system in Vermont.
Doctor Jack Mayer, a retired pediatrician in Middlebury, was one of the creators of the petition.
“To my way of thinking as a primary care provider, it is a no-brainer,” said Mayer. “We should’ve been doing this 50 years ago like most of the rest of the world does.”
Mayer helped get the petition on the ballots of the nine towns, most in Addison County. In Middlebury, support was overwhelming, with 84% voting in favor. Some other towns even passed the measure unanimously.
This isn’t the first time there’s been a push for universal healthcare in Vermont. The current push comes more than a decade after Act 48, which created a framework for establishing Green Mountain Care in Vermont, but was eventually stopped by then-Governor Peter Shumlin in 2014, who cited “risk of economic shock” given new taxes of up to 9.5% on individual income.
H.433 would start with primary care, followed by preventative dental and vision care a year later – eventually resulting in the full system after ten years. Supporters say that with the high cost of healthcare, and many federal cuts, Vermont needs to do something fast.
With more than 1,000 Vermonters sharing their support for the bill, some state lawmakers have taken notice. But H.433 isn’t getting as much attention as a different bill that shares some similar ideas.
Lawmakers like Rep. Brian Cina (P-Burlington) said that he hears voters loud and clear, but he’s not confident that the committee he’s part of will get to H.433 in time, since legislators only have one week until “crossover” when the bill would have to move on to the Senate.
“It’s unlikely that H.433 would get taken off the wall in one week, when the House Healthcare Committee has so much business that we’re trying to wrap up that we’ve been working on,” Cina said.
But Sen. Ginny Lyons (D-Chittenden County), who chairs the Senate Health and Welfare Committee, is proposing a different bill, S.197, that would reform payments for primary care in Vermont.
“I’m working hard to make sure that we have provisions that will bring folks in,” says Lyons, “and that will establish primary care that is affordable.”
However, Mayer says he doesn’t like that bill in place of Cina’s, arguing it wouldn’t work unless it leads to an entire universal healthcare system.
“It’s another version of HMOs and affordable care organizations,” he says. “We’ve gone through many iterations of trying to figure out a way to facilitate primary care within a dysfunctional system.”
Dr. Mayer says that about 30 percent of Vermonters are either uninsured or “underinsured” – meaning they have insurance but can’t afford to pay for the care they do have.
Crossover day for the Vermont Legislature is this Friday, March 13.