From Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin:
I am not going to undermine the hope of achieving critically important health care reforms for this state by pushing prematurely for single payer when it is not the right time for Vermont. In my judgment, now is not the right time to ask our legislature to take the step of passing a financing plan for Green Mountain Care.”
Vermont was scheduled to roll out its own single payer plan in 2017. However, the plan would have required an 11.5 percent payroll tax as an additional income tax ranging up to 9.5 percent. Shumlin’s announcement was recognition of the obvious: such taxes would plunge Vermont’s already slow-to-recover economy back into recession.
Pushing for single payer health care when the time isn’t right and it might hurt our economy would not be good for Vermont and it would not be good for true health care reform. It could set back for years all of our hard work toward the important goal of universal, publicly-financed health care for all.
Let’s hope it sets back forever that important goal of universal, publicly-financed health care for all, in Vermont or anywhere else in the United States.
