Watching the events of the past several weeks in Washington has been sobering. Decades of failed fiscal policy have finally come home to roost and Congress is tied in knots trying to find a compromise solution and avoid American default. Americans rightly are scared that our leaders can't find a way out of this muddle. But the really sobering part is this: the solutions under consideration don't fix the problem. Even if Congress enacts the most draconian spending cuts advanced by the Tea Partiers, and all of the tax increases advanced by the liberals, we will not be out of the mess. The crisis will still loom. Why? Because health care costs continue to increase at an unsustainable rate, and health care spending is the single largest category of federal spending. Without real, sustained health care cost control, we still face a crisis, no matter what package of cuts and revenues the new "gang of 12" develops.
As a Governor, I can't ignore this problem. Health care spending more than tripled in Vermont between 1992 and 2009. Between 2000 and 2009, health care spending as a share of our gross state product rose from 12.9 percent to 18.5 percent.
We come face to face with the impact of growing health care costs every year in our state budget process. Health care squeezes out all sorts of other priorities, and we (state government) aren't even paying our fair share of the increase. The state can't afford to sustain a rate of growth that far exceeds growth in our economy and growth in our tax revenues. So we shift costs from state health care programs to the private sector. The private sector can't sustain the growth, either, so they cut jobs and reduce insurance coverage for their employees. That's why, despite aggressive efforts to expand government-sponsored insurance coverage in Vermont, nearly one in ten Vermonters is uninsured, and nearly a quarter of our population is underinsured -- they have coverage, but could still go bankrupt if they had a major illness.
In Vermont we are pursuing a plan that we think will control health care costs, not just by cutting fees to doctors and hospitals, but by fundamentally changing the state's health care system. I have launched an ambitious effort, with support from the Vermont legislature, to implement a single payer system in Vermont. Under the plan, single payer coverage will be a right and not a privilege, and will not be connected to employment. This is groundbreaking. But our success in guaranteeing coverage depends on our ability to control health care costs, so our plan is focused squarely on that goal. It has three parts:
Together these initiatives could make a huge difference. If we reduce health care cost growth by just two percentage points (from a predicted rate of six percent to four percent) we will save almost $900 million in Vermont over the period 2014-2019. That's big bucks for a state where our annual state budget is about $1.2 billion.
Congress has a tough job. I don't envy their position as they attempt to navigate the shoals of the federal debt crisis. But they should at least, in the process, address the real problem -- health care cost increases, unabated, will continue to cripple our economy. Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles said it well in the pages of the New York Times earlier this week: "If we can't find a way to slow the rapid rise of health care costs, they will drive this country to bankruptcy." Let's face the music.
Follow Gov. Peter Shumlin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@VTGovernor
Heck, here in Minnesota we have people that come here from Chicago just to collect the better welfare benefits.
How is this system sustainable without the use of general tax funds?
How do you compel the young and healthy to contribute?
He took a page from his northern neighbors ;)
I live CT and have visited VT often...I've thought about moving there even BEFORE this proposal, and am even more interested in doing so now, provided I could find a good job in my field.
but the filibuster stopped everyhting in its tracks
without it we would have a a stronger bill
cause even nelson and lieberman would have been able to bitch about something
would have pased with 55 senbators
Are you set up to support yourselves in your old age, sans Medicare and Social Security? Got a home to live in, enough to pay for food, utilities, a car perhaps, and your health care (from your own pocket - which, unless you're totally obtuse, you must realize will become ever more expensive as you age) when you're 65, 75, 85, 95? And your spouse too, if you've got one, or care. Got enough for that? Sure of that? Even if you do (which I doubt), should other citizens, who may not, just go die (as quickly as possible, to reduce the surplus population)?
What's your answer? Maybe those programs were initiated long ago (like, before you were born, when everything important began) for a good reason. Maybe the concept and means of supporting them - i.e. payroll taxes - should remain, and not be ripped off surreptitiously by Congress whenever it wants to fund another war or something. Of course, if you're really sure, and trust all those great insurance companies and the wonderful free market with your life - go right ahead. Help to kill those protections for yourself and everybody else. At least you won't have to pay more taxes, right?
Government is as corrupt as we allow it to be corrupt ... remember Nixon?
This is not a warm fuzzy feeling; it is a business proposition. Healthcare as we have it now is a corrupt, immoral proposition. Profiting from the misery of others is an abomination ... and it shouldn't be a source of income/profit to some.