(In keeping with GMD’s policy of promoting first-hand diaries from all gubernatorial candidates, here is the latest from Peter Shumlin. – promoted by Sue Prent)
Great news! On April 7th S.88, the health reform bill I co-sponsored over a year ago, finally passed the Vermont Senate. I’m grateful so many Vermonters have made their voices heard on this issue. Clearly, there is a widespread desire for meaningful, systemic reform of our health care system. S.88, if enacted by the full Legislature, would set up a process that could move us toward universal, single payer health care in the next few years.
We still have work to do. Already, we’ve seen attempts to divert the bill toward incremental changes and delay it with unnecessary studies. As President of the Senate and a member of the Appropriations Committee, I fought hard to ensure that the bill retained a strong single-payer component, and preserved an oversight board that would not be dominated by those opposed to reform.
I’m hopeful the House will recognize the strong bipartisan support S.88 received in the Senate, and heed the will of Vermonters as they move forward on this legislation. While S.88 is not as strong as the version I initially co-sponsored, the version passed by the Senate is far and away our best hope for controlling spiraling health care costs and making affordable health care available to all Vermonters.
When I think back on the events leading up to the Senate vote, I am reminded of the testimony of Dr. William Hsiao, the Harvard health policy economist I invited to Montpelier. Dr. Hsiao, possibly the world’s greatest expert on health system design, compared health care reform to making a quilt. He praised Vermont for making pieces of the quilt, but said we had no process for sewing the pieces together into an integrated whole.
I believe S.88 makes important strides toward sewing together Dr. Hsiao’s quilt. But in order for the Legislature to follow through, we need Vermonters to continue speaking out for health care reform.
We also need technical expertise. Dr. Hsiao has already indicated his interest in contracting with the State of Vermont to design a system that fits our unique political, economic, and social conditions. It is my hope that, if S.88 passes the full Legislature intact, we can hire Dr. Hsiao, or someone equally qualified, to be the architect of a universal health care system for Vermont. With all the details put in place over the summer, Vermont could well be on the verge of making history a year from today.
A final requirement for meaningful change is leadership. There are many opinions on what should be done, but sometimes in debating the details we lose sight of the overarching goal. Good leadership means bringing the discussion back to fundamentals. That’s exactly what I tried to do in facilitating the negotiations between the Health Care Committee and the Appropriations Committee in deciding the language of S.88.
We need new leadership in the Governor’s office. Governor Douglas and Lieutenant Governor Dubie have shown no interest in universal health care reform. Even within my own party, there is often great hesitation and fear when it comes to proposing bold new measures. Change isn’t easy. But we can no longer watch while health care costs contribute to more and more bankruptcies. Piecemeal reform, while well-intentioned, has not solved and will not solve the greater problem that we face.
Let’s hope that S.88, combined with a groundswell of popular opinion and new leadership in the governor’s office, will propel us toward universal health care. The accomplishments so far, though just a beginning, offer a glimmer of hope. I’m proud to have been part of it. With your help, I look forward to greater success in the future.
But I’m posing this to all the other candidates. I greatly appreciate everyone’s hard work on ensuring health care for all Vermonters. It’s so important that basic care be available to all. However, in light of the short time ’til the end of session, I think it’s important that Challenges for Change be addressed:
The same folks who created the VT “Challenges for Change” report also created the “Zoom into Change” report for Iowa in 2004. Six years later, what headline appears in yesterday’s DesMoines Register?
It looks like Iowa’s experience with 6 years of “savings” from the Public Service Group’s revenue and services decimation program (no matter what “chumpy, changey” name they use for it) has left Iowa with a big fat budget deficit. These fabulous savings have drained their rainy day fund and used up all their federal stimulus money, and yet, the hole remains. Did you notice: they’re re-reorganizing, too. Apparently, just like in the corporate world, where reorganization is code for “failing and flailing,” Iowa is finding that the “Zoom into Change” was mostly the fast road to failure.
Did anyone in Vermont’s political leadership take the time to talk to, say, anyone in Iowa to determine what happened to their state budget and state services since this charade was implemented there?
Why do we let these economic charlatans roll us, over and over again? What ever happened to due diligence?
BTW, Peter, how is that Challenge for Change thing working out for you and Shap?
While I shove Challenges for Change down your throats. Trust me, it’ll be great!
Please retire and let someone who knows how to use power for their constituency take over. You just seem to use it to make Jim Douglas look good.
…but be nice, folks – these pols don’t have to post here (although it is the easiest way to reach about 6,000-10,000 likely primary voters, but still…)
My $.02, for what it’s worth.
Senator Shumlin:
Thanks so much for your post here and for getting Dr. Hsiao to come up to Vermont. I read about him in T.R. Reid’s book, Healing of America, and how he designed Taiwan’s system. I was not able to make it to the hearing where he testified, but saw the videos of it later. It was awesome to actually see him in front of Vermont’s health and welfare panels.
I heard how you helped get S.88 through the senate. Can you do it through the house? Can you get Shap to go along with it? Friends tell me that there are other things he would rather do than deal with health care.
Thanks so much, Senator Shumlin. Every day I dread losing the Catamount that I have. It is an expensive program that I cannot use because it is too expensive, but I dread losing it.
Sue, from what I’ve heard S.88 managed to make it out of the house health and welfare committee today. A friend said how it went out with a good margin, 9-2, with two republicans going against it. Now, as I’ve been told, it’s going into the house appropriations committee. From there who knows what will happen to it. then it’s got to get to the house floor and get past the house with a majority in the climate of challenges. That could be interesting.
Sue: S.88 got through the house appropriations committee on Tuesday by a 7-3 vote. Now it is up onto the floor of the house. We’ll see what happens there. It is still en route and has not yet been killed off.