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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>" Douglas doesn’t like the single-payer or public
option ideas because the federal health care law blocks states from pursuing any
such plan until at least 2017 "</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=3>How many of you on this list were aware of this
provision in the Obama Health Care plan ?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>David J.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=tanstl@aol.com href="mailto:tanstl@aol.com">David Sladky</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=undisclosed-recipients:
href="mailto:undisclosed-recipients:">undisclosed-recipients:</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, April 27, 2010 9:53 AM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Vermont Legislature Votes to Begin Designing ‘Single-Payer’
System</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV><FONT face=arial color=black size=2><FONT
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></FONT><BR><BR>
<DIV style="CLEAR: both">
<H1 class=western>Vermont Legislature Votes to Begin Designing ‘Single-Payer’
System</H1>
<DIV>April 26, 2010 by <A
href="http://www.healthcare-now.org/author/jtmhcn/">Healthcare-NOW!</A>
<BR>Filed under <A
href="http://www.healthcare-now.org/category/single-payer-news/">Single-Payer
News</A> </DIV>
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<DIV>By Associated Press – </DIV>
<DIV>MONTPELIER, Vt. – Vermont lawmakers made clear Friday that recently enacted
federal health care reform did not go far enough toward a public model, passing
legislation that could bring to the state the “public option” health insurance
rejected by Washington or even a Canadian-style single-payer system.</DIV>
<DIV>By a vote of 91-42, the Democratic controlled House passed its own version
of legislation passed earlier by the Senate. Both bills call for designing a
single-payer system, in which a government agency would administer and make all
payments for health care.</DIV>
<DIV>The House version calls for that as well as a parallel design of a system
with a public option for health insurance, meaning a system in which a health
insurance program offered by the government would compete against those offered
by private companies. The House’s version also would expand previously enacted
reform efforts.</DIV>
<DIV>Either system would require federal approval.</DIV>
<DIV>The Senate focuses on single-payer as the goal, but also calls for two
alternative designs. Differences will have to be worked out in a conference
committee of three members from each chamber, and it’s not clear what Gov. Jim
Douglas, a Republican, will do with the bill.</DIV>
<DIV>Heidi Tringe, the governor’s deputy chief of staff, said Douglas likes
parts of the bill but has “strong concerns” about others. He has not said if he
would sign it, veto it or let it become law without his signature.</DIV>
<DIV>Douglas doesn’t like the single-payer or public option ideas because the
federal health care law blocks states from pursuing any such plan until at least
2017, Tringe said. “We’d spend $250,000 to design these options, but we couldn’t
hope to implement them until 2017 at the earliest,” she said.</DIV>
<DIV>The governor likes provisions to expand existing efforts to control costs
and slow hospital budget increases, Tringe said. He does not like a provision
requiring drug companies to disclose to the attorney general when they provide
free samples to doctors’ for distribution to patients, she said.</DIV>
<DIV>The legislation has “the dual goals of providing affordable coverage to
every Vermonter, with access to health care in the right time and in the right
place, and secondly to contain the costs of health care over time,” Rep. Steven
Maier, a Middlebury Democrat and chairman of the House Health Care Committee,
told his House colleagues.</DIV>
<DIV>What Democrats called a new effort by Vermont to act as a laboratory
pushing health care in a more progressive direction, Republicans called a fool’s
errand.</DIV>
<DIV>“Rather than focusing our efforts on ensuring that we can take full
advantage of all of the resources that will be provided to states through the
new federal law, we are setting Vermont on a completely different course than
the rest of the country,” said House Republican Leader Patti Komline.</DIV>
<DIV>Part of the bill calls for setting up new teams of nurses and other health
care professionals to manage individual patients’ cases. It’s modeled on the
Vermont Blueprint for Health, a program that Douglas has touted, which began
with a few teams managing treatment of diabetes, heart ailments and other
chronic diseases.</DIV>
<DIV>House Republicans said the state can’t afford to expand that effort now,
given its current budget crunch.</DIV>
<DIV>Sen. Doug Racine, chairman of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee, said
the Senate version of the bill focused mainly on designing a single-payer
system, with the two still to be determined alternatives. “It’s just a
difference in emphasis” between the House and Senate versions, he said.</DIV>
<DIV>Vermont’s efforts to create a public option or a single-payer insurance
system could run into trouble because either would require the federal
government’s OK so the state could continue receiving Medicaid funding from
Washington, Racine said.</DIV>
<DIV>But Racine, a Democratic candidate for governor, said inaction is not an
option. He said the state’s health care costs are expected to grow from about $5
billion in 2009 to $6 billion in 2012. That $1 billion difference about equals
the state’s entire general fund budget, he said.</DIV>
<DIV>“We need to make basic, structural reform if we’re going to get costs under
control,” he said.</DIV>
<DIV>© 2010 Associated Press</DIV>
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