Vt. officials urge for health reform
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By DANIEL BARLOW Vermont Press Bureau - Published: June 26, 2009
MONTPELIER – Vermont lawmakers said Thursday they are worried that President Obama's health care reform plans are falling apart in Washington, D.C., as they urged Congress to make major changes to the industry this year.
More than 130 Vermont lawmakers from three major parties signed onto a letter to Obama and members of Congress this week, urging them to pass meaningful health care reform, including introducing a public health insurance option.
The announcement, made at a Statehouse press conference, comes at a time when Obama's proposals are facing intense criticism from Republicans, insurance companies and even members of his own party.
Sen. Doug Racine, the Chittenden Democrat who chairs the Senate Health and Welfare Committee and is a probable candidate for governor next year, said he believes Obama's health care reform plan "is in trouble in Congress."
"I've always thought that if you wanted to see true health care reform, you would first need to start with true campaign finance reform," Racine said. "There's a lot of money tied up in the health care system and we are now seeing the influence of that money."
The letter to Obama and Congress – endorsed by a range of Vermont lawmakers across the political spectrum, from Rep. Patricia O'Donnell, R-Vernon, to Rep. David Zuckerman, P-Burlington – states that "our disjointed health care system has formed a choke-hold on our economy, limiting job growth and economic development."
"Americans recognize that the private sector alone has proven incapable of creating a high-quality, fair, and accountable health care system that works for all families," the one-page letter reads.
Obama's health care reform plan contains numerous reforms to the industry – which nearly everyone in the country agrees is too expensive and leaves too many people without coverage.
But much of the debate in Washington, D.C. has focused on Obama's plans for a public health insurance option – a program run by the federal government that would compete directly with the plans offered by the private, for-profit insurance market.
House Speaker Shap Smith, D-Morristown, said critics of this plan are afraid that it will "snuff out the marketplace" – but what many don't understand is that it will not be supported through subsidies from the taxpayers, but from the premiums that participants pay into the system.
If the federal government is unwilling to support a public health insurance option, Smith said he is hopeful that a proposal made by U.S. Sen. Bernard Sanders, the Vermont Independent, allowing several states to enter into a single-payer health care model, goes forward.
"I don't think we could do a public option alone," Smith said. "The reason it works on a national level is because of the scope, it makes economic sense. We don't have that same scope here in Vermont."
Sanders, during a telephone interview Thursday afternoon, said his proposal would allow Vermont and a handful of other states to create a single-payer health insurance model as a pilot program for the rest of the country.
He confirmed that passing a public health insurance option in the U.S. Senate will be more difficult than in the House, where the proposal has more support. But he said he is "99.9 percent sure" that the committee he sits on, the Senate Health and Education Committee, will soon pass out a health care bill that includes that proposal.
"There is a lot of support among the American public for this," Sanders said. "But there are also a lot of lobbyists who are fighting this."
Smith and Racine both said Thursday that without the public health insurance option included in the bill, these reforms are nothing more than "band-aids on a flawed system."
Racine also had some choice words for Gov. James Douglas, who visited with Obama at the White House and Republicans in the House this week to discuss health care reform. Douglas has said he disagrees with Obama on the need for a public health insurance option.
Racine, who lost to Douglas in a three-way race for governor in 2002, said it was disconcerting to see the Vermont governor chummy up to the president this week when he is not supporting him on the largest health care reform effort since the creation of Medicaid and Medicare.
"He's down there with a mixed message," Racine said. "And I think he's out of touch with what Vermonters want."
Douglas, in interviews before and after his visit to the White House this week, said he hopes Obama focuses on prevention and cost-containment in his reforms.
"It doesn't matter in the long run how insurance is structured," Douglas said on Tuesday. "We have to get these costs under control."
The campaign to get 131 Vermont lawmakers to sign onto the letter was spearheaded by Rep. Virginia Milkey, D-Brattleboro, and Rep. Suzi Wizowaty, D-Burlington. Thursday's announcement was part of the Health Care for America Now campaign, which includes local sponsors the Vermont Public Interest Research Group.
Daniel.Barlow@timesargus.com.
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