Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Richard Davis, a registered nurse and the executive director of Vermont Citizens Campaign for Health.
I knew that Vermont’s health care reform bill, H.202, was in good shape when I ran into Sen. Anthony Pollina, D/P-Washington County, sitting in the Statehouse cafeteria reading over the latest version that the Senate Health and Welfare Committee was about to vote out on April 20. In my chronically pessimistic mode I asked him if his committee had trashed the bill. He said, “I think we improved it.” My pessimism dissolved, at least for awhile.
Pollina was right. I skimmed the bill and could not find any of the amendments that IBM wanted. On April 20, the Senate Health and Welfare Committee, by a unanimous 5-0 vote, passed H. 202 out of committee. That vote is an indication of how much the bill has drifted away from a single payer bill as well as how much tri-partisan support politicians have been able to garner.
Is it a bad thing that the bill no longer uses the word “single payer” or that it does not incorporate enough of the elements to create a pure single-payer system? Most single-payer supporters in Vermont will tell you they are not disappointed. We understand that when it comes to health care reform everything happens in stages and, if we are ever going to get closer to establishing a single-payer health care system in Vermont, we have to take the first concrete step.
That is why the details, up to a point, don’t matter as much as whether or not H.202 passes. The details will matter more when the next versions of the bill have to be dealt with — versions that include such things as financing mechanisms and benefits packages.
Activists and single-payer supporters have come to understand that the country is watching us and that passage of H.202 will not only provide the foundation for a better quality of life for all Vermonters, but it will give other states the hope that they too can create health care systems that are universally accessible and affordable.
The Senate passed H.202 on a 21-9 vote, and House Speaker Shap Smith decided the bill needed to be tweaked enough to justify a committee of conference in which three members from the House and three from the Senate work out final details. That public process began on Friday and continues on Monday and Tuesday of next week. It is the last step before the bill goes to the governor for his signature.
Legislative leaders have set May 7 as an end-of-session date. I have rarely seen that date setting reflect the real date, but it is a target. Those same leaders know they cannot leave the building until H. 202 is on the governor’s desk.
When Shumlin signs H. 202 it will mark the beginning of a long process and it will make it clear that the governor has the ability to keep promises.
