Vermont considering comprehensive single payer healthcare plan
I was watching the capital gang on CNN. It was same old debate with Robert Novak and Kate O'Beirne representing the wingnuts against some reasonable comments from Mark Shields, Al Hunt and Margaret Carlson. At the end, in their outrage of the week segment Novak ranted about the Vermont Universal healthcare plan. First I had heard of it, but it is always a good bet that anything Novak hates is good for the rest of us! So I did a bit of looking and found the following (below). Why has the press not covered this?
The Calm before the $2.2 Billion Storm!
The legislative atmosphere was calm but very uneasy in anticipation of the health-care storm that will break over the State House next week. A handful of relatively uncontroversial bills meandered through the legislative process but none of the major legislation made significant progress.
But the vastly important House plan for restructuring health care in Vermont moved to the head of the line and will surface on the House floor next week. House Speaker Gaye Symington has cleared the decks, suspending committee meetings to focus the House's full attention and time on the health care debate.
The bill - written by a special House Health Care Committee chaired by Rep. John Tracey (D-Burlington) created for the sole purpose of reforming Vermont's health-care system - is the most controversial measure of the legislative session but, curiously, so far the battle lines have not been clearly defined. The special committee supports its concept, which is to establish a government-run single-payer public-funded health-care system in Vermont. Governor Jim Douglas hates the bill along with its overarching principle of having everyone pay for a system that will lead to rationing of health care in Vermont, since no cost containment measures have been included.
[...]H.524 - Universal Access to Health Care in Vermont
Introduced by Committee on Health Care
April 13
Referred to House Committee on Appropriations
Statement of purpose: This bill would establish the goal of universal access to essential health-care services through a publicly financed, integrated, regional health-care delivery system in Vermont, provide mechanisms for cost containment in the system, and provide a framework, schedule and process to achieve that goal.http://www.nfib.com/object/IO_21677?_templateId=315
What the bill would do immediately is reorganize the way the state regulates health care, creating a new Health Care Administration Department and a separate health care regulatory board that would have authority over hospital and other health care budgets.
The bill also sets a target for the state to take over paying for hospital and primary health care in 2007. The remainder of health care costs would be picked up by the state two years later. But details of what the benefits would be under that system, how much it would cost and how it would be funded are left to a special committee that would spend the summer and fall holding hearings, conducting opinion surveys and focus groups to determine what voters think.
"This is an opportunity to have a very frank discussion with Vermonters," Tracy said. http://www.americansforhealthcare.org/media/news/news.cfm?nid=1246