On the Windsor County Listserve, we were recently discussing whether any candidates were talking openly about single payer.
It was noted that Peter Shumlin was on a panel June 9 in Middlebury and spoke eloquently about single payer. He is a sponsor of S.88:
This bill proposes to establish the goal of universal access to essential health care services in Vermont through a publicly financed, integrated, regional health care delivery system; provide mechanisms for cost containment in the system; and provide a framework, schedule, and process to achieve that goal.
This morning, Amy Shollenberger from the Racine campaign posted this update about Doug’s commitment yesterday to take up S.88 in the committee he chairs:
Doug Racine, along with several others, spoke at the Vermont Labor Council Convention yesterday. Here is an excerpt from his speech:
“I’ve been working on healthcare. I’ve been working to reduce the cost of healthcare and find ways to extend healthcare to all Vermonters. I think it’s time we recognize, as many of you do – I was talking to Ben and others the other day – in a country as wealthy as we are, I think we should be recognizing healthcare as a basic human right. We can afford to do this. It’s really a question of priorities, and it’s not happening in Washington right now for a lot of reasons, but it can happen here in Vermont. I heard you talking a few minutes ago – Marvin and others – about S.88.
I made a commitment the other day with Ben and the folks I was talking with. I chair the Health and Welfare Committee. We’re going to take that up. It’s going to be our starting point, to say how can we do this? How can we work with the federal government to make universal access, single-payer, a reality in the state of Vermont?
I’m going to tell you, it’s not going to be easy. There are a lot of tough questions to be answered. There are a lot of tough issues to work out, but we aren’t going to work it out if we don’t start, and we’re going to be starting on this in January.”
(more updates sub-fold)
On the national front, reports from Congressman Peter Welch’s recent Health Care Forum were also positive. According to single payer advocates in attendance, Peter “came out for Single Payer”, “made it quite clear… that the Health Insurance Companies ARE the problem” and constantly defended having a Public Option in the federal bill.
Those Single Payer advocates have been busy building support, and have a public forum coming up soon:
Single Payer Health Care 4 Vermont: How do we get there from here?
Tuesday Nov. 10, 7 pm Hotel Coolidge – Downtown White River Jct.
State Senator Dick McCormack
Phil Fiermonte, Sen. Sanders staff
Dr. Deb. Richter, VT4 Single Payer
Attorney Marjorie Power
Dr. Paul Manganiello, Good Neigh.Health Ctr.
Sponsored by Windsor./Orange Single Payer Health Care 4 VT
On the other end of the “progress” spectrum, the current legislative proceedings on reform do not seem to be very significant. At a recent forum I attended in my professional role, a speaker involved in the legislative work on “health care reform” talked about some administrative tweaks that are under discussion in various panels and committees. Frankly they seemed from my vantage point to not recognize the scope of the mess that our system really is, and basically admitted as such. I did hear that it was expected that the statewide budget was expected to start playing a stronger role in the state government’s efforts to control costs.
S.88 would definately shake things up if passed. That process starts here with how the primary positions of the various candidates get established and set in stone for the campaign.
Single payer simply makes the government liable for whatever fees private health care charges us. That will just take us down the Taxachusetts road of skyrocketing health care costs.
Public health, on the other hand, means a dialogue and debate about human health, our part in it, science’s role, health care workers’ jobs, and community responsibility. It means a health care system with the resources to get its message out, and to be responsive to public needs.
Under a Republican Lite single payer system, making more noise than the “Eat bad food, sit on your butt, and take drugs” side will be incredibly expensive. Nor will Republican Lite health care shed all the useless hangers on that drive up health costs: lawyers, marketers, fee for service practitioners, etc.
The other side is already demonizing community responsibility as either “rationing” or “forced healthiness”, when it’s really about not peddling drugs, bad food, and self destructive lifestyles.
We need a “right to be healthy” public medicine option that only pays health care related costs, and emphasizes community responsibility for health, using education along with penalties for profiting from bad choices.
That’s going to be a tough sell, but we can’t take control of our own health care, especially its cost, as long as the the profit side controls community health.
Yes, it will be a tough sell. I’ve been to a couple of the forums around the state. The legislators there, perhaps fearing assault if they disagreed:) (just kidding), all agreed with the position that health care should be a human right. Yet, several have said that it is not possible from budget concerns, and other stuff, like that the country was not ready for it. The above from Racine and Shumlin is heartening to see. If this is the attitude now, it could just begin the momentum to overcome the anti-government, free-market stance that has so stymied any health care reform debate.
I agree with the first post about Massachusetts and there attempt at public insurance. But from what I understand, the plan there was a weird hybrid of private companies, subsidies, and regulations–Which is vastly more complicated than single payer.
Yes, the insurance companies are the first issue to tackle, and single payer will effectively reduce VT companies to nothing more than supplemental coverage- but the real elephant in the room is the rising cost of medical treatment. We have a culture of luxury that permeates every level of medicine. A young medical student has every to become a higgghhhh paid specialist while family doctors and physicians are screwed over at every juncture.
I think that any reform which includes single payer needs to address healthCARE costs alongside insurance reform. This would probably look something like debt relief for med students entering primary care and a shift from the culture of referrals to a emphasis on preventative care and common sense procedures.
Yes, I know you need to pay off your shfancy MRI machine but seriously, were getting screwed…