(Continuing site policy of promoting diaries from officeholders and candidates. – promoted by kestrel9000)
I am pleased to tell you that I have invited Dr. William Hsiao, the architect of Taiwan’s health care system, to address the Senate and House Health Care committees this Thursday, March 18 at 2pm in Room 11 of the state house. I am excited about Dr. Hsiao’s visit as it will be the first time Vermont legislators will have the opportunity to hear from a health policy expert with real-world experience in designing and creating a health care system.
Vermont families and businesses can no longer afford our broken health care system, with its escalating costs and seemingly endless obstacles to coverage. It is time for Vermont to make a commitment to move towards a system where all Vermonters have access to high quality, affordable health care. Dr. Hsiao has the skills to redesign our health care system and I am hopeful that legislation will be passed this year that will begin that process.
Hsiao has guided successful reforms in a number of countries, including Taiwan, Sweden, Cyprus, China, Vietnam, Poland, Hong Kong, Uganda and South Africa. Taiwan is a striking example of his use of his reform model. In 1995, the Hsiao-designed universal health care system was implemented within one year, driving down the rate of uninsured from 45% to 5% and stabilizing health spending at 6% of GDP. Quality and outcomes have improved and life expectancy for the previously uninsured has improved dramatically.
Hsiao is the K. T. Li Professor of Economics at Harvard. He is the director of the Program in Health Care Financing at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is author of many books, including 2004’s “Getting Health Reform Right.” More information on Dr. Hsiao can be obtained at http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/fa…
I would encourage all of you to attend what is sure to be an exciting and informative event!
Senator Shumlin:
This is a great coup that you managed to pull off. In the face of Dr. Hsiao even the governor throw up that usual anti-government message that he usually does. We taxpayers give Governor Douglas one of the best health care packages in the state.
Yet, his message has always been that private enterprise is best for everyone else. We Vermonters get shafted with incredibly high costs for even higher deductibles that force us into bankruptcy for medical care if we even bother to seek it at all. I am fresh from a battle over a deductible charge with collection agents (I never even knew about the bill) for a simple test while on Catamount. This is what our medical system in Vermont is: a constant battle with insurance companies, hospital financial people, etc. over bills, deductibles, denied claims, refused procedures. And we love this system?
If you can pull off an even greater coup and get Dr. Hsiao to design a system here in Vermont, you should get a statue built in your honor. I hope you can. I was at the statehouse when you won the Yankee vote for us, the people, and beat Douglas and Entergy. This is a first small step in another great fight: health care. the rest of the democratic world looks at us and wonders why…