Vermont House Committee Considers Road to Single Payer
From the Brattleboro Reformer –
The health care committee of the Vermont House is lining up some of the tasks that will have to be finished before the state rolls out the first-in-the-nation single payer health care system, now scheduled for 2017.
Meeting Friday at the Statehouse, the committee heard from legislative staffers who outlined details that will have to be worked out, such as how to ensure the state gets the maximum amount of federal dollars and who would be covered.
There are details such as what would happen if a person living in Vermont works in another state where their employer offers health insurance or if someone from another state worked in Vermont and their employer didn’t offer insurance.
On Tuesday, Gov. Peter Shumlin recommitted the state to the single payer goal.
The question remains: is ShumlinCare single payer? Spending a lot of time trying to figure out who would be covered doesn’t sound like single payer to me.
Kudos to Vermont, and Maryland, for taking bold steps to extend healthcare to all…or as many as possible. But is it single payer?