Vermont House Passes Single Payer Health Plan Bill

[jimmy olsen]

 

http://www.vpr.net/news_detail/90403/

House Gives Preliminary Approval To Health Care Bill

Wednesday, 03/23/11 5:50pm and Thursday, 03/24/11 7:34am

(Host) After a full day and evening of debate, the Vermont House gave preliminary approval to health care reform legislation that's designed to put the state on the path toward a single payer system.

The vote on the measure was 89 to 47.

Backers of the bill say it's needed because the state's current health care approach is broken. But opponents say it could dismantle the high quality system that's already in place.

VPR's Bob Kinzel reports:

(Kinzel) The legislation is one of Governor Peter Shumlin's top priorities and represents the signature issue of his first term in office.

The heart of the bill is the creation of a 5 person Health Care Board, modeled after the Public Service Board, which will oversee virtually every aspect of health care in the state.

The Board will establish a total state budget for health care, it will review hospital budgets and private insurance rates, and it will design a new payment system for health care providers.

Health Care chairman Mark Larson says the bill, known as H 202, is needed because costs are rising at an unsustainable level.

(Larson) "H202 represents an historic opportunity to fix our broken health care system and unleash the potential of the Vermont economy that has struggled with the cost of health care it would provide health care security to Vermonters and allow us to bend the curve on health care costs in short H202 is the right thing for us to do."

(Kinzel) Larson says the Board is needed to provide a centralized approach to health care reform.

(Larson) "At this point we have nowhere to turn because we have a system that is too fragmented and too complex where there are many cooks but no one is really in charge of dinner."

(Kinzel) Many Republicans and some Democrats opposed the bill. Arlington Rep. Cynthia Browning said the legislation was too ambitious and had too many unanswered questions.

(Browning) "So the uncertainty about the benefits, the coverage, the costs, the financing, the tax structure the uncertainty to our businesses I feel is a very, very detrimental effect to our economy and to the grow of the economy and he creation of jobs and this is not the direction in which I wish to go."

(Kinzel) Earlier in the day, the House rejected an effort to remove $24 million in health care provider taxes from the miscellaneous tax bill.

Lowell Rep. Mark Higley offered the amendment because he said the taxes would ultimately be passed along to consumers.

(Higley) "The governor told this body that we must not and cannot succumb to the idea that Vermonters have the capacity to pay higher taxes and this amendment is offered in that spirit."

(Kinzel) But Ways and Means chairwoman Janet Ancel said the taxes were needed to draw down millions of dollars in federal funds for the state's Medicaid program.

(Ancel) "If this amendment passes we're looking at a potential decrease of $34 million."

(Kinzel) The legislation is scheduled to come up for final approval on Thursday.

For VPR News, I'm Bob Kinzel in Montpelier.

[Hansmeister]

Anyone want to place bets how quickly they will lose all their doctors?

[sbr]

Anyone want to place bets how quickly they will lose all their doctors?

OK, I will bat that Vermont has at least one doctor in the state one year from today.  How much should we bet?

[Darth Wagtaros]

Anyone want to place bets how quickly they will lose all their doctors?

OK, I will bat that Vermont has at least one doctor in the state one year from today.  How much should we bet?

I'm sure there will be many University professors with doctorates in the soft sciences hanging around. 

[Fate]

Anyone want to place bets how quickly they will lose all their doctors?

About as fast as Canada?

[Caliga]

There will be doctors who won't leave... some doctors don't mind being poor and actually do the job because they like to help people.

[Fate]

It's pretty tough to be a Canadian Family Practice doc. You have a higher salary on average than your American counterpart and you have substantially lower malpractice insurance costs. Single payer = doctor poverty! Oh yeah, and death panels!

[Neil]

It's pretty tough to be a Canadian Family Practice doc. You have a higher salary on average than your American counterpart and you have substantially lower malpractice insurance costs. Single payer = doctor poverty! Oh yeah, and death panels!

You're supposed to allow them to frame the debate as comparing the salaries of Canadian family practitioners vs. highly paid US specialists.

That said, I don't think it's fair to expect US malpractice insurance rates to drop all that much.

[Darth Wagtaros]

No, they won't.  There will still be plenty of lawyers.

[Neil]

No, they won't.  There will still be plenty of lawyers.

Indeed.  And because of the rampancy of poverty in the US, the only escape is to scam the legal system.

[Admiral Yi]

It's pretty tough to be a Canadian Family Practice doc. You have a higher salary on average than your American counterpart and you have substantially lower malpractice insurance costs. Single payer = doctor poverty! Oh yeah, and death panels!

Very interesting, would never have guessed that Canadian GPs make more than American GPs.

But the malpractice premium is hardly a function of the payment scheme.

[JonasSalk]

I wish more states would experiment with policies considered "crazy" by others.  We need to get the federal government out of a lot of things and let the state governments start experimenting again with various policies.  Then we'd see how hilariously some states (California) crashed.

[Neil]

But the malpractice premium is hardly a function of the payment scheme.

Indeed.  The structure of the US insurance system is far more damaging, as is the US legal culture.

[Admiral Yi]

Indeed.  The structure of the US insurance system is far more damaging, as is the US legal culture.

Why is it that the left never brings that up whenever they say "the US is the only country in the developed world that does it this way?   

[Grey Fox]

Is Fate for universal health care?