An e-mail from the Vermont Republican Party to voters begins like this:
“What is wrong with Governor Shumlin’s massive Health Care Scheme? Everything that is wrong with Obamacare. Only it’s worse. Call it Titanicare.”
The mailing piggybacks on a campaign ad addressing health care among other issues.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Randy Brock plans to unveil his own plan for health care reform as an alternative to Gov. Peter Shumlin’s proposed universal health care system starting in 2017.
Of the various campaign issues for Brock, health care reform — a hallmark of the Shumlin administration’s efforts — appears to be a top priority.
The administration is currently in the process of developing a financing plan for Green Mountain Care, the health care system it hopes to put in place in 2017. That plan will not be out until after the fall election, and the built-in delay has agitated detractors since 2011 when the Legislature passed Act 48, the landmark health care law setting the state on a path toward single-payer.
Now the GOP appears to be harnessing that issue as a major talking point, raising concerns that the Shumlin administration’s plan could bankrupt the state.
“It’s a mandate driven government monopoly,” the GOP mailing reads. “It will impose rationing and limit choice. Inevitably the cost will drown the State of Vermont in a sea of red ink, or become a noose around the neck of every taxpayer and property owner in Vermont.”
The highlights of Brock’s plan, according to the GOP mailing, are:
*Generous health savings accounts and high deductible policies;
*Lower premiums and/or premium rebates for healthy lifestyles;
*Simpler common administrative procedures;
*Tort reform that protects doctors who don’t order needless tests;
*Coverage that follows people regardless of where they work.
Jack Lindley, chair of the Vermont Republican Party, said health care is one of a few major issues for this November’s election, although not the only one.
In an ad playing off the theme of the 1984 Ronald Reagan presidential campaign ad starting with the line “there is a bear in the woods,” the Brock campaign cites a number of issues Shumlin supports. While Reagan’s bear symbolized the Soviet Union, the bear in the Vermont woods symbolizes things like “health care choices and freedom being taken.”
Along with young people leaving the state, utility issues and taxes, Lindley said the cost of health care is a major campaign issue.
“It’s huge for small business in Vermont,” Lindley said. “It’s the difference between hiring or not hiring, expanding or contracting.”
Brock’s health care plan will focus on taking a more free-market approach. The details are still under wraps.
The gubernatorial candidate has sought the assistance of Tarren Bragdon, former Maine legislator and now CEO of the Foundation for Government Accountability, what he calls a “free-market think tank” in Florida, where Brock also owns a home.
Bragdon, who used to head the Maine Heritage Policy Center, played a significant role in crafting and garnering support for LD 1333, the controversial Maine law that made sweeping changes to the state’s health insurance laws and allowed out-of-state providers to sell plans there.
Bragdon said he could not divulge specifics of what Brock’s health care proposal would look like, but he said aspects of LD 1333, like reinsurance for very sick people could serve as a model for Vermont.
That law allows insurance companies to charge higher rates for older, sicker customers or those who live in rural areas.
Supporters of the bill say it makes sense because it incentivizes healthier lifestyles while prohibiting insurance companies from denying coverage to those who use a lot of health care services.
Critics say it repeals consumer protections and allows out-of-state companies to market plans without an enforcement mechanism to ensure they pay claims.
Bragdon said the fundamental difference between Shumlin’s approach and Brock’s is how much control bureaucrats and politicians have.
“Shumlin’s approach is to have politicians play doctor and achieve that goal by controlling people’s health care decisions,” he said. “Randy’s approach is look at proven solutions that work for the patient and work for the taxpayer.”
Former state senator and Rutland City Treasurer Wendy Wilton, who is running for state treasurer, has also supported Brock.
Wilton produced her own projections for the cost of Green Mountain Care in the fall, and she said no one in the Shumlin administration will debate her in public on her projections, which include a deficit in the billions of dollars.
Wilton said that analysis was her greatest contribution. She is running for state treasurer; her campaign will not focus on health care.
Rather, she said, “Health care is illustrative of my reason for running, which is a problem with transparency and accountability.”
Republicans have asked persistently for a financing plan before the November election with no success.
Health care reform advocates say the free-market approach has already failed when it comes to health care.
Anya Rader Wallack is chair of the Green Mountain Care Board, the board responsible for creating the structure for the single-payer system.
Wallack said allowing insurance companies to charge sicker people more for their premiums undermines the goal of creating a healthier society and the benefits of community rating which requires insurance companies to offer insurance to people at the same price, regardless of their health status.
“Vermont pursued the concept of community rating a long time ago in early ’90s, based on the philosophy that insurance is a way of spreading the risk amongst as broad a population as possible,” she said. “When you start segregating people by risk profile and charge more to people who are sicker, you are kind of undermining the whole concept.”
Wallack said a lot of the traditional economic theories pushed by conservatives do not really apply in the complex world of health insurance.
“There’s certainly a lot of market breakdown in health care and a lot of the sort of standard economic theories about consumer behavior, competition, and supply and demand don’t really work in health care for a bunch of reasons,” she said. “There is a role for government in fixing that situation and creating fairness and a structure in which consumers can make rational choices. In a system that’s too complicated and convoluted for anyone to understand, it’s hard to make rational choices.”
Speaking at a Vermont Press Association luncheon Thursday, Shumlin addressed some of the criticism of his health care plan.
“You’re going to hear a lot about, in the coming months, the unknowns, how frightening this is, how scary it is, how we don’t know exactly what the Green Mountain Health Care Board is designing, we want the answers now, and if we don’t get them that’s not fair and it’s scary that we don’t know what’s going on and it’s scaring businesses and others away,” he said. “You’re going to see a lot of big interests coming, the insurance companies and others who want to ensure that we fail, not because they really care about the little state of Vermont, but because they know that if the pony gets out of the shed in the state of Vermont, the stallion could get out of the shed in California and New York and other big states where governors say to me ‘Wow! We want to know more about what you’re doing there, because it looks really interesting.’”
VTDigger.org was unable to connect with Randy Brock personally on Thursday.