The Snelling Center presents itself as a “nonpartisan” nonprofit working to engage the public in serious discussion of public policy issues. Its current project, on which it began polling last year, is whether Vermont should amend its constitution to change the term of office for Lt. Governor and Governor from 2 years to 4. A question that is clearly treated as secondary is whether the Senate and/or the House should get the same deal.

But frankly, there’s an agenda here, and it’s not exactly nonpartisan — although the polling figures handed out at last night’s debate between Gov. Madeleine Kunin and Prof. Frank Bryan suggest that majorities of both Democrats and Republicans participating in a randomized poll favor an increase in the Gov’s term.

I blogged on this, with an aside regarding John McLaughry’s strong support for the four-year governor and total disdain for the four-year legislature, almost two years ago. My opinion hasn’t changed. But the urgency of taking the poll online has: the Snelling Center will present the results of its polling in January in a push to get a vote on an amendment bill.

The amendment process, a cautionary list of supporters, and the two competing proposals after the jump.

A Constitutional amendment must be approved by a 2/3 majority in the Vermont Senate, pass by a majority vote of the House this session, then get majority approval in both chambers in the next legislative session, then win a popular vote in order to be enacted.

As for the “funding partners” supporting the Snelling Center’s relentless “engagement” with this issue (last defeated by public vote in 1974), here’s the list:

Funding Partners:

AARP Vermont
Blue Cross/Blue Shield Vermont
Central Vermont Public Service Corporation
Champlain Oil Company
Doubletree Hotel
Downs Rachlin Martin PLLC
Entergy Nuclear VT Yankee
Fletcher Allen Health Care
Forcier, Aldrich, and Associates, Inc.
Gallagher, Flynn & Company, LLP
GBIC
Green Mountain Power
Hackett, Valine, MacDonald
Hazelett Strip-Casting Corp.
Hubbardton Forge
Kelliher, Samets, Volk Communications
Lang Associates
Middlebury College
National Bank of Middlebury
National Life Group
Neagley & Chase Construction Group
Northfield Savings Bank
Paul Frank & Collins P.C.
Queen City Printers, Inc.
Union Mutual Insurance
Union Street Media
Vermont Business Roundtable
Vermont Electric Power Co., Inc. (VELCO)
Vermont Gas Systems
Vermont Law School
Vermont Mutual Insurance
Vermont State Chamber of Commerce
Wells River Savings Bank
Windham Foundation

What I see here for the most part is a who’s who of folks who fund the army of lobbyists and donate to Gov. Does-less: banks, utilities, insurance companies (include AARP in that group), and law firms which provide “government liaison” services.

Yes, there’s a bill in the Senate, sponsored by Sen. Bill Doyle, he of the famous Town Meeting Day survey of issues, along with Ann Cummings, Harold Giard, Don Collins, and (ahem) Doug Racine, among others. A competing bill that includes all the legislators was filed by Jim Condos and co-sponsored by Diane Snelling, and (more on this in a minute) Don Collins, among others.

Sen. Collins, of Franklin County, was at a different event in Montpelier at the Capitol Plaza, but dropped by briefly before the debate. He said, “I support a 4-year term for constitutional offices and the Senate, and that’s it.” It was said lightly, with a laugh, but I think that’s what he really means.

Other shared sponsors between the competing proposals are Hinda Miller and Ginny Lyons.

The chairs of the three major parties were on a “reaction panel” at the debate, and Dem chair Ian Carleton and Repub chair Rob Roper agreed (!) that each of their parties held a “diversity of opinion” on the subject. Only Martha Abbott of the Progressives was solidly against moving to four-year terms.

Carleton admitted that, personally, he would support moving to four-year terms for statewide offices. The issue is not (yet) on the agenda for the State Committee meeting on Nov. 17. Perhaps it should be.

Final note: on Nov. 28 there will be an “interactive forum”  with Supreme Court Justice John Dooley and Vermont Law School Professor Peter Teachout at UVM in Burlington at 4:30. The topic is “looking at the roles of Vermont’s Executive, Legislative and Judicial Branches in the 21st Century.” The location has not yet been listed.

NanuqFC
In a Time of Universal Deceit, Telling the TRUTH Is a Revolutionary Act. — George Orwell

Oh, and PS: I’ll bet a four-year term wasn’t something Gov. Does-less heard from Vermonters on his STAT.
 

…here are reports today about how Chuck is landing in the lap of hedge funds in exchange for a couple of $28,500 gifts to the DSCC from two hedge fund executives. 

Let's do the math:  $57,000 for the DSCC, or closing up a 20 point tax loophole for hedge fund execs.  So that’s 20% on, say $1.7 billion on appropriately charged income to add to the common weal, or $57,000 for the DSCC.  Hmmmmm….  How much of the $57,000 is landing in Schumer’s war chest?  Heck, even if he got it all, he’d still be a really cheap date for a couple of high flying billionaires.

The bill being discussed suggests that hedge fund execs should be taxed on income, not on short term capital gains.  Short term capital gains tax is 15%. For anyone else earning over $174,850 a year, there’s a a reasonable income tax of 35%  

But if you're pulling down $1.7 billion, then Chuck is ready to give you a break. 

( – promoted by odum)

A couple of issues near and dear to the hearts of Vermont activists are playing out (or beginning to).

First is the aftermath of Rep. Dennis Kucinich's move to do what so many Vermonters wanted Rep. Peter Welch to do – sort of. As everyone has no doubt heard by now, Kucinich called the impeachment question on the floor of the House (where motions on impeachment are considered privileged and must be addressed). Yay Dennis, except, well – it was a call for the impeachment of Cheney, which seems to me to miss the target politically and ethically. Long past are the bygone days where people on the left wondered whether President Bush was no more than an ineffectual empty suit. Cheney may be his most crude, effective and brazen hatchet man, but he is still a hatchet man – a mere symptom of the problem that is Bush himself.

In any event, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland moved quickly to table the motion, but was stymied by a block of Democrats joined (ultimately, after some vote-switching) by Republicans who thought a public debate over the merits of ditching a vice president whose approval rating is nearly in the single digits would somehow embarass his critics more than his defenders (this is bizarro world, isn't it?). The motion was not tabled, but, after getting the dissident Dems marching to his drum, was then quickly sent by Hoyer to the Judiciary committee where the profoundly disappointing Chair, Rep. John Conyers, will simply stack it to die along with the other Kucinich impeachment resolution gathering cobwebs in that committee.

But the question on everyone's mind is – will Kucinich simply bring it to the floor again (and aim at Bush next time)? By House rules, it remains a privileged motion that must be considered. If Kucinich is serious, he could well bring it to the floor on primetime every day of the session. He's gotten gobs of good feedback on this, so activists are watching and waiting…

Second is Rep. Welch's moment of truth on Iraq funding that is now on on its way.

Welch has gone through a process which many Vermont activists (myself included) have found rather frustrating in terms of Iraq Warfunding (and I'm not refering to the bizarre, Welch-is-personally-responsible-for–Iraq crowd who seem so obsessively fixated on him, or who see piling on him as a means to other political or personal ends). Welch has moved through a series of steps on his dealing with Iraq much like the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and now, acceptance. While he's done them all within the course of a year (which is fast in Legislative time), it has been frustrating to watch him go through such a process to end up where he reasonably should have been years ago (and where many of us thought he already was when he was elected); at a point where he's prepared to stop playing political games and refuse to continue funding of Bush's Middle East adventure.

Some time back, Welch joined other frustrated members of the Progressive Caucus in signing a letter saying enough is enough – that they would no longer follow the Democratic leadership (intent on biding its time until next year's election, apparently) and would simply vote against any and all funding for the Iraq War without firm withdrawal timetables. The Welch-haters, naturally, didn't care that he'd made the very commitment they were demanding, and have even continued to circulate angry emails that simply state (in the face of reality) that he hasn't signed the letter, and castigate him for it. Whatever.

But the point is, the moment of truth is nearly here. From AlterNet:

In the next few days, a Congressional conference committee will likely pass the largest defense spending bill in the history of the United States. Despite Democratic lawmakers' promises to stop issuing blank checks for war, the bill does not call for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq or Afghanistan, nor does it prevent military action against Iran.

If Welch means what he says, he can likely hardly wait to cast his vote to get the Welch-haters to shut up (they won't, of course, as he has somehow acheived almost mystically evil stature in their eyes. Why is beyond me, but that's a matter better addressed by social psychologists). If he doesn't (and I can't see why he wouldn't, as he seems to be playing out a fairly consistent pattern), he's gonna rightfully catch holy hell if he flubs this.

Stay tuned.

RICHMOND — A 21-year-old soldier from the Jonesville section of Richmond was killed Monday during a roadside bomb attack near Kirkuk in northern Iraq.

He graduated from high school the same year my younger son graduated. 

“He went into the Army to pay off his college loans,” Wells said. “It's really a crying shame that in the wealthiest country in the world, people have to go into the army to pay for college.”

Just a quick question of the day:  What is with NPR’s fascination with the Hollywood writer’s strike?  It’s at the top of the hour, and follows at just after the half-hour break with an “in-depth” interview. 

I mean, with all that’s going on today for news, how does the writer’s strike float anywhere near the top? 

Don’t get me wrong, I fully support labor interests and especially creative writers.  But, geez, is America gonna melt down if we have to put up with — gasp! — reruns? 

Perhaps I live in that small corner of the world that doesn’t live or die by television and the movies.  Perhaps it really is vital to the well-being of America for entertainment to roll on in the midst of war.  (Oh yeah, there’s a war, right?)

Somehow the phrase, “opiate of the people” keeps ringing in my ears.  Maybe that’s it!  If people aren’t pleasantly distracted or lulled into trance-like apathy, they just might actually pay attention to what’s going on around them, and what their tax dollars are being used for. 

Better get them writers what the want, pronto!  For the sake of national security!

Here's a quick Vermont political checklist of endorsements (on the left side of things, at least) for President. These are the names I could find easily, so feel free to add or correct in the comments and I'll try to update this at the end of the day.

I find this sort of thing interesting, not so much as it regards the candidates, but in terms of the insights it provides into the actual endorsers. 

I'm sure there are more names out there. Anybody?

I’m going to start by explaining this picture.  When I show people photos of fireworks, I often get asked how I manage to time the shots to get the fireworks just right.  This is because they’re under the impression that I wait until I see the perfect fireworks shot coming and trigger the camera at exactly the right moment.

That, of course, isn’t how it works.  This picture is one of dozens I took that same evening.  Some of them were excellent: crystal clarity and perfect motion, with the fireworks cascading through.  Most weren’t. 

I made errors.

I got many shots out of focus.

I didn’t leave the shutter open long enough. 

I left the shutter open too long.

Sometimes it works. 

Sometimes it doesn’t. 

But I’ve never tried shooting fireworks and failed to get a shot that I wanted to use.

But there’s still a trick to all of this.  This picture isn’t a quick exposure that I timed perfectly.  The shutter was open for about thirteen seconds.  I wasn’t trying to get the fireworks timed perfectly so I’d have them at the exact right time.  I started at the beginning, opened the shutter and waited for the blast to leave the base, fly into the air and do whatever it would do. 

That’s because even though I do make mistakes, I also know what I’m doing and have experience with this sort of photography.  But that’s not particularly meaningful if I won’t take risks from time to time as well.

So let’s talk about risk taking.

And experience.

And why you can make all sorts of mistakes and still come away from it proud of what you did.

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about Rosa Parks and how carefully planned the Montgomery Bus Boycott had planned, despite popular belief that it was a spontaneous uprising.  It was potential energy, waiting and ready to be made kinetic.  It was small movements of light that might seem imperceptible at first, that wouldn’t form a full picture at the the time viewed, but when seen as a whole paints a different picture.

When we build political movements it’s easy to treat them as though they are failures if they don’t meet their goal.  When Theresites created the Vichy Democrats blog, the site was dedicated to:

…exposing… and bringing… down… traitors to the Democratic Party, the Republican-lites, the lefty-neocons, the Iraq War apologists. The Vichy Dems.

This, obviously, didn’t quite happen.  And it’s easy to be discouraged by this, just as its easy to be discouraged by Democratic fecklessness.  When both Schumer and Feinstein agree that Mukasey should just as well be confirmed, it’s clear that traitorous Democrats still hold serious power.  When Schumer tries to scuttle the candidacy of an openly gay senate candidate against Elizabeth Dole, we’ve got a big problem.

And it looks, on the surface, like we’re losing the battle against the right-wing bush-supporting sychophants.  We haven’t made any obvious ground when it comes to ending the occupation of Iraq.  Bush has still, despite his 24% approval rating, managed to bully this Congress.  House leadership supports corrupt incumbents like Al Wynn and behaves badly towards those who ask about it.  We have Barney Frank dismissing the left-wing kooks who think that ENDA needs to be all-inclusive. 

But there’s a real change going on here.  We all felt in November of 2006.  Netroots candidates made significant progress in ways most of us didn’t think possible four years earlier.  But that was quickly deflated as it became clear that we weren’t going to be leaving Iraq anytime soon.  And, once again, we feel betrayed by those Democrats who aren’t as progressive as we’d like or by those who have been corrupted and co-opted by the party machine.

So we lose.  Again.

But here’s what I figured out, and it took me about 40 years to get this: winning and losing don’t matter. 

Let me say this again: winning and losing don’t matter.

And this is what Pelosi and Schumer don’t understand: they’ve been out of power for so long that they don’t know what it’s like to have power and to use it wisely.  So they focus all their energies towards holding onto that power.  So they don’t do anything about Iraq and they refuse to consider impeachment and they only bother to fight on issues like SCHIP when the country is over 70% behind them and refuse to take Bush on over the hard stuff.  They cave on FISA.  They decide that Mukasey is just fine even though he doesn’t think Waterboarding is necessarily torture.

So they don’t fight. 

They compromise.

They capitulate.

Because they think that the way to win the game is to hold on to power.  Even if you don’t use that power.  Even if you’re afraid of using that power because you think that if you use it, you’ll lose it.

Because here’s what’s really true about winning and losing: it doesn’t matter because fighting matters so much more.

What did Reid and Pelosi do as soon as Bush vetoed them on war funding?

They turned around and gave him the bill he wanted.

Rosa Parks didn’t even get noticed the first time she got arrested on a bus but she fought a great and enormous power because she felt a duty to do so.  She fought.  Not with force.  Not with destruction. 

Her weapons were quiet grace and peaceful resistance.

How do we, as activists, find our own way to create resistance to what we see in this world?  How do we find new ways to fight the injustices we see?  How do we battle the poverty of ideas that we see coming from our representatives?  How do we fight for better people in office, ones who will challenge any president who tries to justify torture and wiretapping, by any name?

How do we fight for representatives that will not capitulate to anyone who tries to justify long-term occupation of foreign lands?

And, more importantly, how do we stay in that fight without falling into despair?

We do it by looking at the long view. 

We do it by being prepared. 

We do it by knowing that what happens now is not nearly as important as what happens three or four years from now.

We do it by knowing that every change takes longer than we’d like and that just because we win some battles doesn’t mean we’ve won the war, but we continue to strive, to try, because if we don’t, we do fail.

So we fight.

And we try to see the big picture.

And it’s not always clear what it’s going to be.

And it might be something that just doesn’t work the way we’d hoped.

So we learn.

And we try something different.

We all lose at some point.  We all, in the end, will die. Some of us will die penniless and think of ourselves as failures. Some of us will die with modest wealth and look back on our lives as though we had some success.

But really, we all win at some point, too.  Every one of us has some moment that we can look back on and say “I can’t believe I did that.  That was so awesome!”  (if you really can’t say that, then you should really look at your life and think about what you need to do to change it, because you deserve a moment like that).

But the most important thing is that when you look back at your life, you don’t look at what you’ve acquired, thinking of your successes in terms of what you’ve earned and what you’ve gained.  Think about them in terms of what you’ve tried and what you’ve been willing to try even though you might fail.

So I’m going to ask questions I’ve asked before:

As an activist, what are you going to do this week that might change the world?

What are you going to do this year that scares you a little bit to do, but will be worth it in the long run?

What are you going to do that makes your community better?

What are you going to do that challenges an established power?

What are you going to try that’s likely to fail, and how long are you going to keep it up?

The next time Michael Mukasey is called to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee I suggest that he be strapped to a stretcher, a rag placed in his mouth and water poured in the rag until he begins to answer completely and truthfully the questions put to him by the committee.

Now that waterboarding has become an accepted form of interrogation in these United States, I recommend that it be utilized not only with Mukasey, but with all future witnesses before committees of the congress. I think that there are subpoenas kicking around out there for Condi Rice and other executive department figures who have been less than forthcoming in past appearances, so perhaps as our favorite republican tough guy Rudy Giuliani says, we should question them aggressively.

It might be a good idea if the voting public were able to use the same technique in questioning the presidential candidates on their positions. For the rest of the debates all candidates should be wheeled in strapped to stretchers and aggressively questioned using this simulated drowning method.

Using these methods we may begin to get the truth from our “public servants” and declared wannabes.

This will not work in Atlanta however, they don’t have enough water at the moment to achieve any kind of satisfactory results.

Bob Higgins
Worldwide Sawdust

In today's column, Krugman opens up the real question about leadership in America today.  It's not about what party one is associated with, it's about how much they are influenced by economically powerful forces.  Which is the primary reason a deep chill goes down my spine when the latest poll suggests that 56% of women — all women- favor HRC.  Unlike Obama and other candidates, Clinton's war chest is full of corporate cash.  Of course, her spokespeople would reply that other candidates have corporate donations as well.  Reality would suggest a simple counter response:  yea, just not nearly so much.

I won't quote Krugman here — the whole piece is worth the time to click the link above.  But it seems that there's an underlying fear of the most wealthy people in America, who have made their fortunes in an American marketplace.  The fear is simply put, that the money will run — away from lawmakers and leaders who suggest a reasonable tax on hedge fund principals (now at a mere 15%); or off to a newly created tax exempt trust; or perhaps to Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, or even the moon.

If a handful of economically powerful people were charged to pay their fair share back into the financial system they benefited from, the result would be billions in revenue.  However, until our leadership understands how they are necessarily influenced by the financial elite, and begin to address inequities in America, then every move forward will be weighed down by the powerful resistance of wealth. 

Thousands of us face myriad barriers — financial, access, policy, intentional corporate interference and other impediments — when it comes to receiving basic (or any) health care.

With a health care delivery system imploding in front of our eyes, the Vermont Department of Health is going full-bore with a new initiative. To aid physicians and patients in these troubled times of healthcare delivery collapse, the Department of Health has deputized enlisted the helping hands (and eyes) of law enforcement throughout the State.

Thinking of having surgery? Got a chronic condition?  Do you have a spouse or family member fighting cancer? Does your child struggle with ADHD? Well, guess what the Department of Health's brand spanking new program will do to for you.  For starters, it's designed:

 — to spy on patients, and
 — to monitor the specific treatment practices your physician provides for you, and
 — to transfer your confidential medical information to various police agencies and state investigators, all in contravention of Vermont law . . .

(of course, there is more, below . . . )

The Vermont General Assembly passed a law in 2005 called the “Vermont Prescription Monitoring System” (VPMS).  Sound ominous? Well it is worse than it sounds. 

The Department of Health is in the process of seeking legislative approval of administrative rules the Department drafted to govern VPMS. The proposed rules will monitor your physician's provision, and your access to, hundreds of treatments for thousands of conditions. The purpose of the law is intended to identify substance abusers and to facilitate their treatment — nothing inherently wrong with that and in fact it is a laudable goal.  However, the proposed regulations by the Department of Health do not accomplish the goal set out by the legislature, violate the laws governing the VPMS and present too many dangers for disclosure, misuse, mishandling of sensitive patient medical information. 

“Administrative Rules”  Administrative rules, or regulations, are the Vermont regulatory laws that implement state agency programs. These regulations flesh out the details of the tatutes that fall under the jurisdiction of various bureaucracies. The Department of Health's proposed regulations violate the laws they are intended to facilitate.  Here a few reasons why these regulations must be stopped before they go into effect.

The law creating VPMS, Title 18 Chapter 84a requires the Department of Health to do ONE THING.  The legislation states that the Department of Health must:

adopt rules for the implementation of VPMS . . . 45 C.F.R. Part 164 [federal privacy and data protection guidelines] that limit the disclosure to the minimum information necessary for purposes of this act.

In other words, the legislature passed a law requiring, and authorizing, the Department of Health to regulate, with the strictest protocols possible, any potential disclosure of medical information it collects as part of VPMS.  The legislature did not give the Department of Health authority to do much else.

It was the legislation's intent that the Department of Health develop a system to protect the confidential information it collects in VPMS.  It must then use that information consistent with the overall purpose of the legislation, which is to facilitate public health and treatment of those who need it. That did not happen. Instead, there are a significant number of legal, policy, practical problems and mistakes in the Department's proposed VPMS regulations. I will highlight just three.

                     *          *            *

#1 The legislature required the Department to write ONE policy and procedural objective into the regulations, and the Department ignored this statutory mandate. The law requires procedures to identify and then disclose if necessary the minimum necessary information to achieve VPMS's goal. Facing just this one requirement, the Department of Health has given birth to VPMS Regulations devoid of a single strand of “Disclosure Limiting” DNA.  The Department has effectively ignored its primary responsibility to Vermont patients and physicians.

On the flip side of this same problem, the VPMS law prohibits the Department from disclosing your medical information in specific instances for your protection and for your medical provider's protection.  The Department's proposed rules ignore this critical aspect of the law as well.

For this reason alone, the proposed rules must be withdrawn, rewritten or outright rejected by the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules.

                      *          *            *

  #2 The Department of Health is also attempting, in proposed Rule 1.7, to divest Vermont Courts of jurisdiction over one critical aspect Vermont patients and physicians may encounter with VPMS.  Without any legislative authorization, the Department is claiming for the Commissioner of Health “sole discretion” over any decisions related to erroneous, or other corrupt or suspect data.

Consider this, like the federal no-fly list, if your records have a mistake (purely hypothetical, right?) you cannot ask a court to require VPMS to account accurately or report to your health care providers reliable information about your prescription history.  Vermonters have a right, under our Constitution, to remedies at law and it is doubtful that the legislature could have given the Commissioner this type of authority even if it wanted to. Here the Department of Health is merely claiming legal authority for its Commissioner, which the law in no way envisions. For this reason alone, the proposed rules must be withdrawn, rewritten or outright rejected by the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules.

                     *          *            *

#3 The Department's proposed rules violate one of the key compromises worked out in the legislature among the various parties involved in developing the final statutory language passed and signed by the Governor. The legislature, medical providers, patient advocates and others were rightly concerned that this program might turn into a state tool to spy on people or that highly sensitive personal medical information may circulate through policing agencies inappropriately. 

To curb possible abuses, the legislature MANDATED (18 V.S.A. §4284(6)) that only the commissioner of health “personally” – in limited and defined circumstances – may disclose your medical information to Vermont police. The law specifies that the commissioner of public safety may receive, directly and personally, limited information from the health commissioner, personally, in rare emergency circumstances.

The point of this disclosure limitation and requirement was due to the fact that this is a public health statute, not a police monitoring statute.  Disclosure to policing agencies, if made at all, is only permitted under the VPMS law in a rare emergency case of an “imminent” threat to public safety as personally determined and evaluated and communicated by the Commissioner of Health.  No Exceptions.

To sneak around this legal requirement, the Department of Health’s proposed regulation (Rule 3.4) includes this gem:

For “purposes of this [law],” the term Commissioner shall mean: “A deputy Commissioner of Health” and on the law enforcement side, “Commissioner” shall mean “Director of Vermont State Police” or “other management designated by the Commissioner of Public Safety to receive” the information.  In other words “anyone.”

Hey, why not define your neighbors, your employer and business associates as “Commissioner for the purposes of implementing VPMS” while we are at it?

The contempt for the enabling legislation is palpable in this proposed rule 3.4.  The Department of Health has taken an important legislative compromise — one that received significant testimony and deliberation, — and it has re-written the law to suit its own agenda outside of the governing law. 

                     *          *            *

The Department of Health must not be allowed to treat the administrative rulemaking process as an opportunity to re-write state law.  The rulemaking process is an obligation to implement state law not an opportunity to change it. The proposed rules ignore the critical restrictions the legislature put on the transfer of health data to Vermont police.  For this reason alone, these proposed regulations must be either withdrawn and re-written or outright rejected by the legislative committee on administrative rules.

The Department of Health has spent months of work and invested significant State resources on VPMS but:

A. the Dep't did not write the regulations the law requires the Dep't to do; and

B. the Dep't exceeded is statutory authority by revising VPMS beyond anything permitted in Vermont law; and

C. the Dep't, in addition to exceeding its authority, is now poised to impose regulations that violate the express language of the VPMS statute.

This is really the scary part. The Department of Health, before it even begins assembling your most personal and confidential medical data into a giant and ill-defined state program, has already telegraphed its intention to ignore the governing law.

Tomorrow, Monday the 5th of November, is the final day to comment on the Department of Health's proposed rules.  If the Department of Health does not withdraw the proposed rules after the public comment period, then the proposed rules will go to the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules (LCAR) for its approval.

No Vermonter or citizens' group should have to go to court to stop these rules from taking effect. The Department of Health needs to withdraw the rules and rewrite them or LCAR must reject them. The public is invited comment directly on the proposed rules at the Department of Health website: http://healthvermont.gov/admin/comment/RxMonitoring_comment.aspx.  The Department of Health is required to respond and to consider any substantive comments, suggestions or proposed changes it receives. 

I will post VPMS updates in the upcoming days addressing comments to the Department of Health on the proposed rules, and Department of Health's responses to those comments.

Private medical information is serious business affecting people's lives and livelihoods in many ways. This makes it a dangerous area for irresponsible government.  No matter what the subject, however, there is no excuse for state agencies jeopardizing our rights by acting so blatantly outside of the law.