Just got back a little while ago from a healthcare forum in Burlington's City Hall, sponsored by the Chittenden and Franklin County Democrats. The panel featured Anya Rader Wallack, PhD, Shumlin’s special assistant for health reform, Dr Deb Richter from VT for Single Payer, H.202's sponsor Rep Mark Larson, and Senators Sally Fox and Hinda Miller (Dr George Till, Rep from Underhill, was unable to attend).
All participants were strong advocates for “a universal and unified health system” as the bill's title establishes, with a couple panel members explicitly dedicated to single-payer and Dr Richter especially providing excellent, animated explanations on the key issues. The audience was primarily supportive of SP and H.202, though a couple questions submitted had some anti-reform bias and/or misinformation. Overall I thought it was a fair presentation of the legislation and realities of reform.
I wanted to focus on one issue that came up during the sausage making process in the Senate. AsJames Haslam from the Healthcare Is A Human Right campaign noted, Senators Brock (one of mine from Franklin County, and a Republican) and Sears (Democrat from Bennington) introduced a floor amendment just before the 3rd reading:
An individual shall not be considered to be a Vermont resident if he or she is 18 years of age or older and is…not lawfully present in the United States.
It passed 22-8, with my friend Philip Baruth and our other (Democratic) Franklin County Senator amongst the courageous few voting against. The two Senators present tonight voted for it and I wanted an explanation. The moderator read my question, which I honestly don't remember precisely but essentially asked if they supported the amendment and would they work to remove such a discriminatory policy from the legislation.
The long and short is that nobody on the panel likes the provision and hopes to excise it in conference. Senator Fox gave the longest answer and admitted that she was not proud of the vote but, having voted against it in committee, was concerned the entire bill would be scuttled if it didn't pass (Sears in particular was adamant). After chatting with Deb, Mark and Sally after the forum, I do feel like we have a good shot at “clarifying” the language–part of the issue is compensating providers in the event that an undocumented worker gets care.
The underlying problem as I see it is that denying coverage–not care, mind you–violates the whole concept of universality and flies in the face of a fundamental human right. Beyond that, it's fiscally irresponsible to create a system that, through discriminating against certain people, ultimately increases costs to us all as they will not receive care until requiring costly emergency interventions. It also ignores the fact that undocumented residents do pay taxes as well as giving their sweat and other contributions to our community.
And let's not forget our state constitution. The first chapter is entitled: A DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE INHABITANTS OF THE STATE OF VERMONT. It's not about rights only for “people who meet Federal legal qualifications” or anything else restrictive. It is universal and if you inhabit our state you have:
certain natural, inherent, and unalienable rights, amongst which are the enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
Rep Larson made an important point: one way to delay progress is to make people afraid. He specifically mentioned some ridiculous scaremongering heard in the Senate's debate about the Green Mountain Care board outlawing smoking or skiing.
I think the tack regarding legal status of residents is in a similar vein. If we can convince folks that their hard earned dollars are being taken from them to give to those people who shouldn't even be here, maybe we can derail reform. That's one big downside to this process being way slower than I would like, though I appreciate Mark's other observations about moving ahead responsibly and with plenty of opportunity for participation in the process (which I think does counter the “we're rushing” canard).
Anyway, I think we've got some excellent stewards of the sausage factory working hard and in good faith on this. We've got a lot of work to do ourselves to keep the pressure on and show our elected employees that we have their back.
Speaking of which, don't forget the May 1st rally in Montpelier! Should be a nice day to get outside and demonstrate your support for healthcare as a human right for ALL.
ntodd