Vermont Democrats chicken out and abandon their plan for single payer health care
In this previous post, I wrote: (the bolding is new, and was not in my original post)
Vermont plans to start single payer health care in 2017
April 27, 2014
Vermont is planning to start a single payer health care system in 2017.
I support states’ rights, and I don’t live in Vermont, so I don’t have anything against Vermont doing this.
I view this the way a scientist views an experiment. I’m curious to see how it turns out.
Will Vermont stick to its plan, or will they chicken out?
Will the federal government allow it to happen, or try to block it?
Will patients’ access to health care get better, worse, or stay the same?
Will the number of doctors per person in Vermont get bigger, smaller, or stay the same?
Will costs go up, down, or stay the same?
Will politicians, celebrities, and rich people participate in it, or will they find some way to get exemptions?
Only time will tell. And I am quite curious to find out.
Unfortunately, that bolded part has come true.
Associated Press has just reported:
Governor abandons single-payer health care plan
December 17, 2014
Calling it the biggest disappointment of his career, Gov. Peter Shumlin said Wednesday he was abandoning plans to make Vermont the first state in the country with a universal, publicly funded health care system.
Going forward with a project four years in the making would require tax increases too big for the state to absorb, Shumlin said. The measure had been the centerpiece of the Democratic governor’s agenda and was watched and rooted for by single-payer health care supporters around the country.
Legislation Shumlin signed in 2011 put the state on a path to move beyond the federal Affordable Care Act by 2017 to a health care system more similar to that in neighboring Canada. Shumlin adopted the mantra that access to quality health care should be “a right and not a privilege.”
Vermont’s Democrats supported single payer health care in theory. But as the reality of the plan got closer and closer, they eventually admitted that they did not really want such a plan.
That explains why a plan that was passed in 2011 was not set to take effect until 2017. It gave Vermont’s Democrats bragging rights, so they could say they supported single payer health care. But as the 2017 deadline for actually adopting the plan got closer and closer, their bluff was revealed. They did not really support single payer health care. Instead, they just wanted to say they supported single payer health care.
Their supposed excuse for abandoning their plan was that they just found out that it would require higher taxes. Do they really expect us to believe that they were unaware of this in 2011, when they passed the plan? How dumb do they think we are?
Vermont’s Democrats are liars, and they are cowards.
To the Vermont Democrats who claim to be shocked at the fact that adopting single payer health care would require higher taxes, I post the following scene from the movie Casablanca:
