If only Vermont wasn’t so far away:
The ACA provided states with federal funds to institute a Medicaid expansion. The states chose to expand the program also were able to set up their own state exchanges, which were relatively free from the problems the federal site had. Vermont decided to take it a step further by setting up their very own single payer system.
The slogan of the program: Everybody in, nobody out.
The program will be fully operational by 2017, and will be funded through Medicare, Medicaid, federal money for the ACA given to Vermont, and a slight increase in taxes. In exchange, there will be no more premiums, deductibles, copay’s, hospital bills or anything else aimed at making insurance companies a profit. Further, all hospitals and healthcare providers will now be nonprofit.
This system will provide an instant boost the state economy. On the one side, you have workers that no longer have to worry about paying medical costs or a monthly premium and are able to use that money for other things. On the other side, you have the burden of paying insurance taken off of the employers side, who will be able to use the saved money to provide a better wage and/or reinvest in their company through updated infrastructure and added jobs. It is a win-win solution.
…
45,000 Americans die every single year because they cannot afford treatment, are you ready for that? That is 15 times the amount of people that died during the September 11, 2001, attacks, or perhaps for you Righty’s out there you would rather see it put this way, 11,250 times the amount of people that died in the Benghazi attack. That equals 5 Americans that die every hour, of every day, of every year because of a preventable illness that was not taken care of due to lack of access and means.
The effective date is three years off. The courts are still open. Citizen’s United is the law of the land. Health insurers have mega bucks. Medicaid and Medicare expansion would take Congressional authorization beyond the ACA. This still feels like a longshot.
This is a European style health care delivery system. It goes well beyond the single-payer approach. Can there be any doubt that Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders had something to do with making sure that all hospitals and healthcare providers were “nonprofit?” Tell me again why Capitalism is the only approach to getting things done in this country?
Wow! Way to go Vermont. The only way it could fail is if Lobbyists convince the state to claw back to for profit health care. I see a population boom in the state’s future.
real estate in Vermont is about to get very expensive.
This could get interesting. As lless points out, “…The courts are still open. Citizen’s United is the law of the land…”.
What if the Big Health/Money forces tried to block Vermont from managing the program as they want to – “everybody in; nobody out” – and it works.
Good God. What a horrible day for Capitalists and “for profit only” health insurance. It would be the equivalent of “the 90 miles from our shore” faux panic we always heard about after the revolution in Cuba.
Except this wouldn’t be 90 miles away. It would be here.
Would Big Health/Money try to block Vermont? Vermont has talked about seceding. Would that movement get a boost, if the federal government, acting on behalf of Big Health/Money interfered too much in Vermont’s business?
And what would be the new battle cry of the Union? In Lincoln’s time, it was to preserve the Union and abolish slavery.
This time around it would be “to preserve the Union, and, uh, to preserve the big profits of our beloved Corporations. Because Freedom.”
Just doesn’t have the same ring to it. The marketing PR guys are going to have to work on this one a little.
In California, when the Gropinator was Gov, the Democrats in the State Assembly kept voting on a single payer bill that kept being vetoed. The Brown got in and suddenly no more attempts to pass single payer. You’d almost think it had all been for show and they didn’t really want single payer.
But, but, if they all suddenly got struck by lightning and became rational and joined Vermont in passing single payer … .
I can dream, can’t I?