Prescription drug enrollment program turns sex line
Lawmakers offered a lot of amendments to this year’s health care reform bill, but few raised more eyebrows than Rep. Oliver Olsen’s request to have the joint fiscal office study the state’s participation in I-SaveRx.
The drug enrollment program the state entered into in 2005 flopped, and now Vermonters trying to buy prescriptions through the mail will be surprised to reach some sort of phone sex line when they dial the number.
VTDigger.org verified this fact, but we’re not going to list the phone number here. That might jeopardize our non-profit status.
Olsen, a Republican from Jamaica, withdrew the amendment from the complicated health care bill, but he said there is a serious aspect to it. The state is embarking on a new experiment with health care reform, he said, and it should study its past mistakes.
-Alan Panebaker
Passing notes in class
Rep. Dustin Degree, a Republican from St. Albans, called foul this week when the chair of the House Committee on Health Care and the governor’s director of Health Care Reform engaged in iPad-to-iPad communication on the House floor.
When Republicans pressed Mike Fisher, the chair of the committee, on the pending health care reform bill, Robin Lunge, the director of Health Care Reform, slipped him some quick answers via electronic message.
Degree said he had a hunch that something fishy was going on throughout the day when Fisher would check his device when Republicans offered a real zinger of a question.
Lawmakers shouldn’t get a cheat sheet, Degree said, especially on test day.
It’s common practice for lawmakers to ask for leave to clarify something, but “there’s a big difference between saying you want to confer versus real-time streaming of information between the executive branch and the reporter of a bill,” Degree said.
He said it is a disservice to Vermonters if the chair of a committee cannot answer questions on his own.
Lunge said passing notes is a long tradition which the Legislature has always allowed.
She said it is not uncommon for lawmakers who have common interests with the executive branch to ask for assistance.
Lunge said it is standard practice for lawmakers to get notes from pages or take recesses to converse with anyone from other representatives to lobbyists. Technology has just made that process easier.
-Alan Panebaker
