by John McClaughry
On Wednesday Gov. Shumlin and the Green Mountain Care Board hastily signed the All Payer waiver agreement with the Federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. This unprecedented deal puts Vermont on a path to having one big health care provider, a model no other state has ever attempted.
Reporter Erin Mansfield of Vermont Digger published two splendid articles that day. The first was titled “Joint Fiscal Office points to unanswered questions on all-payer model”, and the second, “How single-payer health care became a single-provider plan.”
The second published email exchanges between various participants in the process that those participants would surely rather not have seen in print.
On Wednesday afternoon I surveyed the comments on these articles received from Digger readers. The first ten comments, all critical of the All Payer scheme, earned these likes to dislikes: 60 to 0, 16 to 1, 50 to 1, 63 to 1, 42 to 1, 38 to 1, 56 to zero, 53 to zero, 21 to zero, and 22 to zero.
The second article drew fewer comments, all of them critical, and the same overwhelming like to dislike ratio.
Among the critics were a Democratic legislator, a Democratic candidate (MD), and Eric Davis, the respected middle of the road pundit from Middlebury College.
This is the most unanimous and bipartisan blowout I have seen in years of reading Digger. It looks like Peter Shumlin has really stepped in it on his way out.
– John McClaughry is vice president of the Ethan Allen Institute.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I would say Shumlin “stepped ON it”. Soyonara!
Once again idiot Shumlin showed just how stupid, incompetent, and out of touch he is. How he ever got elected much less REELECTED is beyond me. Time for Phil Scott.
This is Shumlin’s “giving the bird” to Vermont on his way out. Hillary will probably hire him to do the same thing to the rest of the country.