RANDOLPH — The Republican state Senate candidate in Orange County, Bob Frenier, is proud of his Burma Shave campaign signs — a throwback to ad campaigns of yore.
The 67-year-old Chelsea resident, who is challenging longtime Sen. Mark MacDonald, D-Orange, said he’s placed the sequential campaign signs strategically at 24 locations throughout his district.
“In Orange County there’s only a few paved roads, and people come off the hills to the paved roads and go through some very predictable routes,” Frenier said.
By his own estimate, each of those high-traffic locations sees roughly 1,000 cars per day five days per week, offering up hundreds of thousands of impressions during the campaign.
“That reach and frequency makes for a pretty efficient system, because the people on those roads are, for the most part, voters,” he added.
But the signs came under attack Tuesday at a candidates’ forum at Gifford Medical Center in Randolph.
Rep. Sarah Buxton, D-Tunbridge, focused her closing statement on Frenier instead of her Republican opponent David Ainsworth.
“I know that Bob Frenier’s signs are all over the district. I know that at least a third of them have incorrect factual statements,” she said “I’m not saying that from a partisan perspective, they’re just flat out wrong.”
She told the audience of almost 40 that democracy is strengthened when people make informed decisions based on facts and not political rhetoric.
Speaking after the debate, Buxton cited a sign that addresses how the state’s planned single-payer health care program would impact seniors on Medicare — a hot topic for conservative candidates on the campaign trail.
Frenier’s Medicare Burma Shave series reads, “If you are 65 or older / Single Payer wants to administer your Medicare / Don’t let them touch it.”
Frenier said its not a scare tactic, and he isn’t suggesting that Vermont could change Medicare benefits or covered services, which are guaranteed to seniors and the disabled under federal law.
The signs are factually correct, but their implications are less clear.
Under current statute the administration is to “seek permission from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to be the administrator for the Medicare program in Vermont,” as part of Green Mountain Care — as the single payer program is known.
Most seniors on Medicare have supplemental coverage, often called a Medi-gap plan. Frenier contends that the state could force seniors to get that gap coverage through Green Mountain Care using the same IT infrastructure as Vermont Health Connect.
“The other part is that the state is notorious for robbing one fund to pay for another thing in the budget,” he said, “They won’t be able to change (Medicare)’s benefits, but if the money runs through their hands I’m concerned about it. That’s the quote that really matters.”
Robin Lunge, Director of Health Care Reform for the Shumlin administration, said Vermont had preliminary discussions with CMS about administering Medicare, but has realized it would be impractical.
CMS has split the country into regions and uses third-party contractors to administer Medicare, essentially paying claims and auditing what health care providers charge the program.
Vermont is in Jurisdiction K, which includes the rest of New England and New York, and to bid for the administrator contract Vermont would have to bid for the entire region, which has 4.2 million Medicare beneficiaries.
Lunge said that CMS officials have told her that Vermont could not administer Medicare solely with its own boarders.
As to whether seniors would have options beyond Green Mountain Care, Gov. Peter Shumlin said the answer is an unequivocal yes.
“They can continue to buy supplemental care on the same market they buy it from now,” Shumlin said Wednesday, adding that market would continue to exist under single-payer.
The only thing that would be different, he said, is that if seniors get treatment not covered by Medicare, that is covered by Green Mountain Care, they would automatically have that additional coverage.
“I’m happy to respond to real problems that might exist going forward, and there’s going to be plenty of challenges ahead, Shumlin said. “This is not one of them.”
But Frenier said several times at Tuesday’s forum that Shumlin hadn’t responded to the central challenge facing Green Mountain Care, which is how to raise the roughly $2 billion in taxes to pay for the program.
He accused Orange County’s Democratic incumbents of not holding Shumlin to account for a tax plan that is long overdue.
Rep. Patsy French, D-Randolph, shot back that the entire Legislature has been eagerly anticipating Shumlin’s financing plan, and it won’t get a rubber stamp from Democrats.
“We will not just run over a cliff saying ‘oh, yes, we said we want to get there, so we’ve got to get there,’” French said, adding that signing off on a plan that isn’t going to work would be political suicide for Democrats.
French is in a three-way race for two seats with Marjorie Ryerson, D-Randolph, whom Shumlin appointed following the death of former Rep. Larry Townsend, and Charlie Russell, a Randolph Center Republican who said he’s running to restore freedom in Vermont.
MacDonald used his time to address single-payer to point out that the $2 billion raised in taxes is roughly equivalent to what Vermonters already pay in premiums and out-of-pocket costs for health care
MacDonald and Frenier have contrasting styles as politicians. MacDonald is nuanced to the point of being hard to follow at times, with a fervent but halting delivery.
Frenier, who is a political newcomer in Vermont but served decades ago on the Selectboard in Bedford, Massachusetts, is polished and measured, but cool in a way that could come across as cynical.
In addition to his Burma Shave signs, Frenier has gotten a boost from the Republican State Leadership Committee, a national political action group that supports Republicans running for Statehouse seats.
The RSLC has spent close to $100,000 on radio and online ads as well as direct mailings to support Frenier and six other Republican senate candidates.
A central theme of Frenier’s campaign is that government makes better decisions with a strong minority party, and he said he has no problem with the national group spending money to support him if it will help him land a seat in Montpelier.
MacDonald countered that it’s an unfortunate commentary on national politics that powerful organizations can cross state lines to pour money into local races.
“This county doesn’t have a traffic light, but it’s got the Koch brothers singling it out,” he said.
Koch Industries, run by brothers David and Charles Koch, is a major donor to the RSLC.
“I don’t think Orange County can be bought, but we’ll see,” MacDonald added.
