Vermont Lawmakers Lay Groundwork For Single Payer System In Place Of Obamacare

WASHINGTON -- Vermont officials are beginning what promises to be a provocative push for a statewide single-payer health insurance system that would take the place of President Barack Obama's signature health care law, the state's lone congressman said Wednesday.

Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) told The Huffington Post that his state's local and national lawmakers were "looking to get a waiver" so as to formally opt out of the federal system. Conversations have begun as to how an alternate health care policy might look like should the waiver be granted, Welch said.

"Vermont is very supportive of moving towards single-payer, you have the entire congressional delegation you have the governor who ran on the platform of single-payer and the legislature is very sympathetic to single-payer," he said.

According to Welch, the state's governor, Democrat Peter Shumlin, was receiving a report on Wednesday from one of the architects of Taiwan's single-payer system, which would help inform a proposal tailored for Vermont.

Under the current law, however, Vermont would have to wait until 2017 to get the waiver that would allow the state to set up its own system.

"It doesn't make sense to have it be 2017 because by then the federal law has gone into effect," Welch said. "You are setting up the exchanges and what you end up doing is having states that want to innovate -- in our case single-payer -- have to unwind what we put in place."

Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Scott Brown (R-Mass.) have introduced legislation to move the opt-out date up to 2014 -- an amendment that both Welch and, it appears, House Democratic leaders support.

"This whole state opting out, there is a lot of precedent for this," Assistant House Minority Leader James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said in a meeting with bloggers and new media reporters on Wednesday. "And I don't know why nobody focuses on it, but if you go back and look at Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, you would find some very interesting language that allows states to opt out of the coverage of that act. I happened to run the agency in South Carolina that because of the law we passed in 1972, South Carolina was allowed to opt out of that section of the Civil Rights Act so law as the state law was substantially equal to the federal law. And I think that is the whole concept of states' rights.

"If you are going to come up with a state law that will give coverage to the citizens that is equivalent to the federal coverage, what's wrong with opting out?" Clyburn added. "We had that discussion around the table when we talked about putting this bill together, I kept using that term, 'substantially equal to the federal law.'"

Comments

[DrMandible]

03:33 PM on 02/03/2011

Go Vermont! Get the insurance company middle-men out of health care!

[RicoShay]

12:43 AM on 01/21/2011

I just had a half hour debate with a right winger on another site. When I mentioned Vermont was going to try for single payer his retort was "and how did that work out for Massachusetts?" To which I informed him that Mass didnt enact a single payer system. Many, including physicians, want it because whey they've had since 06 isn't working. I'm sure Vermont has taken note of mistakes that were made in Mass.

The transition to single payer isn't going to be a smooth one but it has to happen none the less. It is time the for profit insurance industry to go..... we can no longer afford them.

[dgvb]

07:53 PM on 01/20/2011

I say Vt. ought to just go ahead with it, and let the fed challenge it and stall in the courts for as long as possible so the benefits become too great to overlook. And the more states that join in the fun, the more difficult it will be for the fed to not get egg all over it's face when the good times roll for the states that do it. And everybody else wonders why they can't have it too.

[OldTulsan]

06:01 PM on 01/20/2011

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/01/20-6
Insurance Execs Not Happy with Vermont's Single Payer Ideas | CommonDreams.org

"by Russell Mokhiber

Harvard Professor William Hsiao is a single payer supporter.

Twenty years ago, he helped push through a single payer system for Taiwan.

And now, he wants to do something similar in Vermont.

Over the past couple of months, Hsiao has been working feverishly – with a team of 20 researchers – to finish a report to the Vermont legislature on how to best implement a single payer system for the state.

Yesterday, he delivered his 132-page report.

And at the beginning of his one hour presentation to the legislature in Montpelier, he made it clear that “what I’m going to present is not necessarily popular for everyone.”

“Recently I was talking to an insurance executive,” Hsiao said.

“And I asked him if he was in favor of spending $50 billion to manufacture a new shuttle to the moon.”

“And he says – yes, if you will go.”

That got a chuckle out of the gathered legislators.

But clearly, the insurance industry is not at all pleased with Hsiao.

They are watching events in Vermont carefully.

The newly elected Governor – Peter Shumlin – ran on a single payer platform.

Shumlin said that in his first conversation with Hsiao last year, Hsiao told him that he had “given up on America...”

[Protocolor]

06:57 PM on 01/20/2011

No surprises here....

But thanks for the details! Let's watch with "shock and awe" as the capitalist media absolutely HAMMERS Vermont of the next several months...

Predictable... so predictable...

[OldTulsan]

09:42 PM on 01/20/2011

You're welcome.

[Lorianne]

05:37 PM on 01/20/2011

Vermont Releases Draft Proposal for Single Payer and Other Health Systems
 
Today, Dr. William Hsiao presented to the Vermont legislature a draft proposal for three different health care systems for the state. They include:
Option 1 – government-run single payer
Option 2 -  public option
Option 3 – public/private single-payer

[JustFrogs]

05:34 PM on 01/20/2011

Here it is ... the right wing are woefully misinformed and deluded about what they believe the Founding Fathers actually wanted:

http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/01/17/congress-passes-socialized-medicine-and-mandates-health-insurance-in-1798/

(Spread the word)

[OldTulsan]

06:03 PM on 01/20/2011

F&F and thanks.

The word shall be spread

[Longtimeliberal]

05:31 PM on 01/20/2011

Watch HC rates plummet and how will Republicans reply to that. It is not only Vermont but add Washington and California to start. Take insurance bureaucrats out of the system and the money they skim and of course there will be savings. Insert bundled payments which for a small state should not be hard and we have a model to copy.

[Lorianne]

05:39 PM on 01/20/2011

Why haven't Dem majority States already enacted single payer systems in their states well before the the supposed 'reform' bill?

[Protocolor]

06:26 PM on 01/20/2011

Simple answer: Dems and Progressives are not the same thing.

Primer on American Politics: Democrats are normally referred to as 'liberals' and Republicans are normally referred to as 'conservatives'. The terms 'liberal' and 'conservative' have historically be adjectives, however, and not nouns. Adjectives are descriptive words that modify a noun, though sometimes, when the noun is understood to both the speaker and the listener, it may be dropped during casual conversation. Examples include "greens" to refer to edible leafy green vegetables, or "cop" to refer to an official with copper-colored buttons on their uniform.

So, the question is: What is the noun that the adjectives "liberal" and "conservative" both refer to? Answer: Capitalist.

Democrats are Liberal Capitalists.
Republicans are Conservative Capitalists.

Vote liberal, or vote conservative... either way you get a Capitalist. Liberal Capitalists want a 'looser' society that rolls with the times. Conservative Capitalists want a law-and-order one of the sort they imagine their great, great, great granddad enjoyed. Common thread is that people born into or falling upon capital wealth should have that wealth protected by the state... That protection should be the state's principal concern, in fact.

Back to the question: How does Single Payer protect the interests (wealth, concerns) of powerful owners of capital?

It does not do so.

Neither liberal capitalists nor conservative ones want Single Payer. Both will strongly oppose it. Thus, neither wing of the Capitalist Party fights for it.

Surprised? Don't be.

[Protocolor]

06:53 PM on 01/20/2011

Democrats and Republicans both KNOW that health care costs would plummet with a Single Payer style system. That, in fact, is why they oppose it so strenuously.

You take for granted that the Republicans want to keep the worthless dead-weight of private insurance companies in the health care cash-flow loop. What you fail to understand is that the Democratic Party has absolutely NO PROBLEM with insurance corporations leeching off the health-care-seeking public either.

For the Democrats and Republicans both, the true challenge has for decades been how to shield you, the general public, from the reality that you are being raped, daily, by corporations. Liberal Capitalists believe that you should be thrown more crumbs from their feeding table, and that this might sate you and keep you distracted. Conservative Capitalists feel that they should use the tools of the State to turn the screws on you instead, frightening you into submission. In the end, though, submission is the goal of both liberal and conservative capitalists.

Turn away from Conservatism. Abandon Liberalism. Both seek ways to maintain your chains. (yeah, liberalism hurts less, but the Liberal goal is still to maintain the Capitalist property relations, just like the Conservative one).

This is why things that seem obvious to dumb people like you and me always seem to escape the attention of our elected representatives... it's not that that don't know what we want, but rather that they really, REALLY don't want to deliver.

[BLACKCAT66]

04:49 PM on 01/20/2011

I wish Vermont luck in this. It will take a few years to get a system in place. They would be doing this with a much smaller pool than most countries but if done right can be great step. I wonder if the medical community in Vermont is on board with this? It will require them to establish state employed doctors although people would have the choice to see private doctors and additional private insurance at their own expense like some of systems in other countries.

[GirlFriday123]

05:13 PM on 01/20/2011

Most of them have been on board with the current state-assisted healthcare plan. Private Insurers make it hard for any small town doctor to make any kind of profit.

[Isthisalreadyinuse]

01:16 AM on 01/23/2011

Look into what Medicare and Medicaid do for that doctor's profits...if they even accept those patients.

[noam4prez]

07:41 AM on 01/21/2011

It is not true that "t will require them to establish state employed doctors".

This is single payer, not single provider.

They will establish a system similar to US Medicare. The US does not employ doctors for Medicare, but it pays them for services.

[BLACKCAT66]

01:37 PM on 01/21/2011

Thanks for the reply. I re-read my post and realized that I should have worded it differently. I was wondering 'if' they would need to have state paid doctors, because a lot of single payer models (Denmark, Britain, Canada) have that model. For example the doctors are paid a good salary by the state and ,in Canada for example, may also get a bonus based on performance (such as getting patients to lose weight, lower blood pressure, quit smoking, etc). Either way I wish Vermont good luck with this and hope that other states may also give it a try. Maybe that will be the only way we overhaul health care to a single payer sane model like every other civilized country on the planet instead of the corporate insurance company welfare model that is being clung to.

[p456]

04:47 PM on 01/20/2011

It is not Obamacare it's national health care reform. It's not perfect but it can be improved. I wish that it was single payer but it is much better than what we had. I think the states rights crowd are just a bunch of whack jobs who need to leave governing to honest smart people like the president and others.

[AlphaDoc]

05:22 PM on 01/20/2011

>It is not Obamacare it's national health care reform.<

Thanks for pointing that out.

[Lorianne]

05:34 PM on 01/20/2011

No, it was health insurance 'reform' (I'd argue it's health insurance subsidy)
 
Insurance and CARE are not the same thing.
Conflating those two words is/was propaganda

[Elvin Frantz]

03:55 PM on 01/20/2011

In a single-payer state all federal money for Medicaid, Medicare, etc. would need to be sent directly by the federal government to that state for administration. Would that be possible ?

[Elvin Frantz]

03:46 PM on 01/20/2011

Federal funds for Medicaid, Medicare, etc. that are now going to a state adopting single-payer would need to go directly to the state under such a plan. Is this possible ?

[Isthisalreadyinuse]

01:22 AM on 01/23/2011

Medicaid already goes to the state who pays the provider. I doubt however the Feds would do this for Medicare, resulting in at least a two payer system. Then there is military, veterans, workers comp...

[christmas808]

03:04 PM on 01/20/2011

the reason why america does not have a single payers system is because we dont like to admit when we're wrong

[bobncar]

02:37 PM on 01/20/2011

I say go for it. So goes one, so goes all

[skjn62]

04:04 PM on 01/20/2011

Hoepfully.

[AlphaDoc]

05:23 PM on 01/20/2011

Either that or Vermont's population is gonna increase substantially. :)

[taddles]

02:22 PM on 01/20/2011

Excellent, I hope they are successful.

[big tom]

02:19 PM on 01/20/2011

now we are headed in the right direction