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Vermont Bails on Single-Payer Healthcare

SocialDemocrat

SocialDemocrat

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Vermont bails on single-payer health care - Sarah Wheaton - POLITICO

Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin on Wednesday dropped his plan to enact a single-payer health care system in his state — a plan that had won praise from liberals but never really got much past the framework stage.

“This is not the right time” for enacting single payer, Shumlin said in a statement, citing the big tax increases that would be required to pay for it.


Shumlin faced deep skepticism that lawmakers could agree on a way to pay for his ambitious goal and that the feds would agree to everything he needed to create the first state-based single-payer system in 2017.

And that was all before Shumlin, a Democrat, almost lost reelection last month in one of the country’s most liberal states. And it was before MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, the now notorious Obamacare consultant who also advised Vermont until his $400,000 contract was killed amid the controversy, became political poison.
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Terrible news. Just another example of how politicians will backstab the electorate right after the election.
 
SocialDemocrat said:
Vermont bails on single-payer health care - Sarah Wheaton - POLITICO



Terrible news. Just another example of how politicians will backstab the electorate right after the election.
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Perhaps he's thinking this move will help him in the run-off next month. Or maybe...just maybe...he's one Democrat who actually puts the financial health of his State before a destructive liberal agenda item.

Too bad he didn't have the lobby muscle he needed to suck more money out of the rest of us taxpayers...or should that be considered a good thing?
 
SocialDemocrat said:
Vermont bails on single-payer health care - Sarah Wheaton - POLITICO

Terrible news. Just another example of how politicians will backstab the electorate right after the election.
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I do not agree. Odds are they just came to the realization it would be a very difficult road to implement single payer in today's political and economic climate. Odds are there would be real legal challenge to kicking businesses out of the state in favor of such a system, they had to have known that.

On top of all of this liberals today do not have such a good name when it comes to who is in on the plan and the expectation of Americans just going along with it because of intelligence or aptitude issues. That really did not help your case, that sort of we know what is best for you because you are all idiots mentality. You may disagree but Jonathan Gruber went a long way to ensuring distrust for liberal ideas going forward.
 
SocialDemocrat said:
Terrible news. Just another example of how politicians will backstab the electorate right after the election.
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At first glance, it looks at least in part like they're a "victim" of the ACA and near term health care both being cheaper than was thought even a year or two ago. For example, the ACA's waivers for state innovation (which Vermont was going to pursue) allows states that want to try their own thing to get an amount of federal money equal to the federal dollars that would've flowed into the state in the form of premium and cost-sharing subsidies under the ACA--in other words, they can re-purpose ACA money for their own program, be it single-payer or whatever. That was going to be an important funding source but apparently Vermont's estimate of how much that will be has been more than cut in half since their estimates only a year or two ago.

The better the current system does financially (and the more its costs come in under expectations), the more the relative advantage of switching to a single payer system erodes. Record low health spending growth, the lowest employer-based premium growth in years, lower-than-expected exchange premiums, etc are all good but they also have the effect of making the switch to single-payer relatively more costly than it would be if health costs were soaring. "This is not the right time" sums that up pretty well.
 
SocialDemocrat said:
Vermont bails on single-payer health care - Sarah Wheaton - POLITICO



Terrible news. Just another example of how politicians will backstab the electorate right after the election.
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This decision was precipitated by the realization that there was too much opposition to the higher taxes that were needed for single payer. This isn't stabbing the electorate in the back; it's bending to the will of the people.

As was discussed when this first came down, they didn't make the tough choices concerning how they were going to pay for the thing. That was to come later, and this is later. I told you so, yes I did: they were not going to find the money to pay for it, I said -- they were afraid to speak the truth, which was that much higher taxes would be necessary.

They were looking at a 11.5% payroll tax and a state income tax of 9.5%. That ain't happenin. The anticipation of this crap was killing the business community.

If liberal Vermont, that had been working on ways for single payer to work for years, can't do single payer then it's not possible in the US.
 
A sad day. The United States will continue to lag behind the rest of the industrialized world when it comes to health.
 
Paschendale said:
A sad day. The United States will continue to lag behind the rest of the industrialized world when it comes to health.
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No its not.

Its a good day. Reality triumphs over unaffordable left wing nonsense, again.
 
SocialDemocrat said:
Vermont bails on single-payer health care - Sarah Wheaton - POLITICO



Terrible news. Just another example of how politicians will backstab the electorate right after the election.
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how is it terrible? the Gov made a wise decision. VT would have had to raise it's payroll deduction to about 11.5% on businesses
an additional income tax of 9.5%.

how is it terrible that he didn't want to destroy the VT economy? only a person with a myopic point of view would see this as terrible news.
He is probably the only liberal out there that has realized just how unaffordable a single payer system would be.
 
sawdust said:
Single payer was going to cost Vermont taxpayers an additional twenty percent in state income tax. The governor decided rightly that voters would not support the tax. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Bottom line, left wing social dreams of utopia are unaffordable.
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An extra 20% in taxes? :shock:

Vermont has its nuts - a lot of them, in fact - but they aren't this stupid. And the "Take back Vermont"ers have been arriving daily.
 
Fenton said:
No its not.

Its a good day. Reality triumphs over unaffordable left wing nonsense, again.
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So how is it the rest of the industrialized world is affording it just fine? And having more social mobility? And being generally healthier and longer lived? And having just as much liberty in their lives as we do?
 
tres borrachos said:
An extra 20% in taxes? :shock:

Vermont has its nuts - a lot of them, in fact - but they aren't this stupid. And the "Take back Vermont"ers have been arriving daily.
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If you go to Belgium, which I mention because I have friends there, their highest tax rate is fifty percent, the lowest is ten percent. If a homeless guy makes a thousand dollars a year, he pays a hundred in taxes. Here they pay nothing. There is an ad valoum tax there on most durable goods of twenty percent, including gas and diesel. Their sales tax is fifteen to twenty percent on top of that. That's what their so called free health care and old age pension costs them. My friend has grown up with it and doesn't seem to mind. To me, he looks like a frog in boiling water who doesn't know the state owns him.
 
sawdust said:
If you go to Belgium, which I mention because I have friends there, their highest tax rate is fifty percent, the lowest is ten percent. If a homeless guy makes a thousand dollars a year, he pays a hundred in taxes. Here they pay nothing. There is an ad valoum tax there on most durable goods of twenty percent, including gas and diesel. Their sales tax is fifteen to twenty percent on top of that. That's what their so called free health care and old age pension costs them. My friend has grown up with it and doesn't seem to mind. To me, he looks like a frog in boiling water who doesn't know the state owns him.
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50 percent?:shock:
 
tres borrachos said:
50 percent?:shock:
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That's their top marginal rate for income tax. All that other stuff is on top of that. If you have substantial income there, you give most of it to the government.
 
sawdust said:
That's their top marginal rate for income tax. All that other stuff is on top of that. If you have substantial income there, you give most of it to the government.
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My father was in the 50% tax bracket in this country when it still existed in the 1970s. He used to say how nasty it was to work an hour and half of it was government servitude.
 
Paschendale said:
So how is it the rest of the industrialized world is affording it just fine? And having more social mobility? And being generally healthier and longer lived? And having just as much liberty in their lives as we do?
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Lol !!

Yea right. " Liberty " gets you free health care.

More like confiscatory taxes gets you " free stuff '' !!

Obviously, your version of left utopia couldn't be done in Vermont. Without a private sector there is no way to pay for all of these Public Sector giveaways.

A massive tax increase kills the economy as these businesses look for better places to set up shop to avoid the nonsense.
 
Fenton said:
Lol !!

Yea right. " Liberty " gets you free health care.

More like confiscatory taxes gets you " free stuff '' !!

Obviously, your version of left utopia couldn't be done in Vermont. Without a private sector there is no way to pay for all of these Public Sector giveaways.

A massive tax increase kills the economy as these businesses look for better places to set up shop to avoid the nonsense.
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"Confiscatory" taxes? Wouldn't this describe all taxes? Are you against all taxes?
 
Deuce said:
"Confiscatory" taxes? Wouldn't this describe all taxes? Are you against all taxes?
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Excessive Bussiness killing taxes to pay for Socialist Healthcare would be a good example I suppose.

Vermont's decision to offer Single payer was a great idea until it came time to pay for it all.

Typical short sighted Liberal policies.
 
Fenton said:
Excessive Bussiness killing taxes to pay for Socialist Healthcare would be a good example I suppose.

Vermont's decision to offer Single payer was a great idea until it came time to pay for it all.

Typical short sighted Liberal policies.
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It's a good thing Vermont can't print their own money like the federal government does. It has saved their citizen's children and grandchildren a massive, un-asked-for debt.
 
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