Political health care group means business
The group Vermonters for Health Care Freedom, a non-profit 501(c)(4) political organization, is taking the Shumlin administration and VPIRG to the mat on two issues that came up last week.
First, the group, which states its mission as being “deeply concerned about health care reforms being proposed by Governor Shumlin,” called out the Vermont Public Interest Research Group and the group Vermonters for Single Payer for creating sham Web sites.
Cassandra Gekas, a health care lobbyist for VPIRG, registered a number of domains very similar to the Vermonters for Health Care Freedom site. Some send users to a VPIRG or Vermonters for Single Payer page. Others send them to a mirror site of the Vermonters for Health Care Freedom site that reads “Paid for by the Kock Brothers” — a spoof on the wealthy Koch brothers, known for their generous contributions to conservative political causes.
Vermonters for Health Care Freedom founder Darcie Johnston filed a complaint with the Vermont Secretary of State last week, alleging misappropriation of a registered trade name.
Gekas points out that she registered some of the domains, the ones that forward people to VPIRG, before Vermonters for Health Care Freedom received its certificate of incorporation in April 2011. The “Paid for by the Kock Brothers” site showed up in May. Johnston said she announced the creation of the organization a month before Gekas registered any of the names.
Gekas said the issue is not about “dirty tricks” as a Vermonters for Health Care Freedom press release states. She says it’s a distraction from substantive issues in the health care debate. And how do you copyright “freedom?”
“The name Darcie chose for her organization is purely descriptive and you can’t copy write (sic) ‘freedom,’” Gekas said in an e-mail to VTDigger.org. “In fact, I see myself as a Vermonter for Health Care Freedom – it’s just that my definition of ‘freedom’ differs dramatically from Darcie’s.”
In another maneuver last week, Johnston asked for copies of text and email messages sent from Robin Lunge, director of health care reform for the Shumlin administration, and Rep. Mike Fisher, chair of the House Committee on Health Care. Johnston said the group filed the request after learning Lunge was “coaching” Fisher during the debate on the House floor last week. Lunge said the high-tech messaging is standard practice, but Johnston and some House Republicans questioned the Shumlin administration’s influence in the legislative process.
~ Alan Panebaker
Defunct prescription program repealed
Last week the House voted to do away with a mail-in prescription drug enrollment program that bombed.
In 2005 Vermont passed a law that would have allowed consumers to purchase prescription drugs from Canada at less than they would cost locally through a program called I-Save Rx. A Canadian company would administer the program and fill the prescriptions. The law required the state of Vermont to provide a link to the Canadian website and help promote the program.
Down the line, the program flopped, and now calling the phone number sends callers to some sort of phone sex line.
Rep. Oliver Olsen, R-Jamaica, offered an amendment to H.559, the health care reform law, Thursday that would have repealed the law enacting I-Save Rx and required the Joint Fiscal Office to do a study to find out what went wrong. Facing a likely defeat Thursday, Olsen withdrew his amendment. He reintroduced it Friday. It passed, but the idea for the independent study failed.
“It seems that the majority would like to quietly sweep that whole thing under the rug,” Olsen wrote in an e-mail to VTDigger this week.
~ Alan Panebaker
Mental health official to work for insurer
Rebecca Heintz is parting company with state government, and moving on to the private sector. Recently, Hines became the new associate counsel for Blue Cross Blue Shield.
In that politically difficult period shortly after the gubernatorial election last fall, when Gov. Peter Shumlin was in the process of picking his team, Heintz, who had served under Gov. Jim Douglas, travelled with Christine Oliver from the Department of Banking, Insurance, Securities and Health Care Administration to the Department of Mental Health. Hines took the position of deputy commissioner of the department, while Oliver became commissioner. Less than six months into the job, Heintz picked up another role — interim executive director of the Vermont State Hospital — when longtime director Terry Rowe left the psychiatric hospital to return to a less visible, less intense environment in the Agency of Human Services.
Heintz served double duty as deputy commissioner and interim executive director for the hospital from the summer onward and after the hospital was closed in September after Tropical Storm Irene severely damaged the building.
~Anne Galloway
Hartford Police turn to Facebook to pressure Valley News to give up public records request
Facebook is usually a venue newspapers turn to for information from the public, but in a recent twist, the public was pressuring the Valley News in Lebanon, N.H., to give up on its pursuit of more information about the murders of Robert and Keum Yie McCoy and the suicide of Barry Facto early this year in Hartford. The Valley News had placed a public records request with the Hartford Police Department for more details about the deaths.
Police have said 50-year-old Facto murdered the elderly couple and then later committed suicide by inhaling automobile exhaust, according to a story from John Gregg. The couple’s bodies were found in their home several days after the murder. Facto’s body was located in the attached garage.
The Hartford Police Department has refused to honor the newspaper’s quest, and recently attacked the Valley News on Facebook for asking for more information about the case. Police described the deaths as an “isolated family tragedy.”
Gregg wrote:
The police also posted an email that Hartford resident Gail McCoy, a daughter of the slain couple, had sent to the Valley News in early February, in which she said, in part, “Please allow the family to grieve their loss without the media trying to create a sensation story. I firmly believe that the community as a whole is also grieving the loss of our parents. Please respect us and allow us to turn our hearts and minds to better days. Allow us our fond memories without your constant probing.”
The Hartford police post spurred 42 comments over the next 24 hours, some from McCoy family members and friends, with virtually all expressing the sentiment that the newspaper was violating the family’s ability to grieve in private by seeking the police records.
This is the fourth incident in which the Hartford Police have refused to give the press records of police actions. Hartford Chief Glenn Cutting has refused interviews with the paper for about 18 months.
Allen Gilbert, executive director of the Vermont ACLU, said the Hartford police Facebook posting is an intimidation tactic.
“This is the first time I’ve seen a public agency using social media not just to get around the press, but to intimidate the press. That’s really how I see this. They are essentially trying to make you folks respond to public pressure in a way I don’t see as justified,” Gilbert said.
The Valley News has not decided whether it will sue the police department.
Note: The Vermont ACLU is representing Anne Galloway in a court case involving Wayne Burwell, a black man who was dragged out of his own home for a suspected burglary.
Correction: We misspelled Rebecca Heintz’s last name as Hines.
