Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Jeff Wennberg, the executive director of Vermonters for Health Care Freedom.
This is in response to Wendell Potter’s commentary (“Health care reform: New ad, old tricks,”) regarding the new Vermonters for Health Care Freedom commercial.
The central message of the ad is that under single payer health care, unaccountable government bureaucrats will interfere in the doctor-patient relationship. Mr. Potter wastes no time describing the commercial as “deceptive” but then agrees that it is accurate. Gov. Shumlin’s single payer health care reform has granted five unaccountable appointees the authority to limit the care you will receive, regardless of what you or your doctor think. Period.
Mr. Potter’s argument centers on the fact that insurance companies are doing the same thing now. What he does not explain is why he desires to replace insurance bureaucrats who operate in a competitive marketplace and are regulated by the state, with government bureaucrats running a health care monopoly and regulating themselves.
Vermonters for Health Care Freedom believes in a better option. An option that achieves universal coverage and puts doctors and patients back in charge of these most personal decisions.
At least under the current system there is a choice of insurers – albeit much too limited, thanks to Vermont’s laws and regulations – and the state serves as a regulatory defender of the rights of the insured. When the state is paying all the bills and providing all the coverage, to whom will we go when we have a grievance? The state?
Vermonters for Health Care Freedom believes in a better option. An option that achieves universal coverage and puts doctors and patients back in charge of these most personal decisions. An option that maintains the state’s critical regulatory role without conflicts of interest that place the needs of the state above the needs of patients.
Mr. Potter is correct when he says that our health care system must be reformed. But a single payer government monopoly will only make matters worse, because it will place unaccountable government bureaucrats between you and your doctor and the care you need.
