When Rep. George Till, D-Jericho, abruptly left the House Health Care Committee on Friday just before a major vote, many of his fellow legislators thought the physician had an emergency to attend to.
But that’s not the case.
Till told VTDigger on Tuesday that he left the room for political reasons. He wanted the major budget bill that stalled on Friday to pass on a decisive vote so that a proposed sugar-sweetened beverage tax could pick up steam as it headed into the House Ways and Means Committee. Till’s departure paved the way for a 5-5 tie vote.
“My frustration was people being stubborn to the point of being irrational,” he said. “I would very much like to see additional subsidies in there, but I would not vote against the bill because of that.”
He knew that the legislation, which would place a penny per ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages and allocate health insurance subsidies for low-income Vermonters, would hit a deadlock if he left. The five remaining Democrats were for the proposal and the three Republicans were against the tax, while Rep. Paul Poirier, I-Barre, and Rep. Chris Pearson, P-Burlington, opposed significantly lower subsidies for Catamount Health and VHAP patients who will be dropped from the state programs and forced to participate in the new health care exchange under the Affordable Care Act.
“I think it’s important for this bill to come out of this committee with a strong vote,” he said on Wednesday after the bill passed in a third vote, this time in a 7-4 vote.
Pearson and Poirier wouldn’t budge on the matter, he said, and Democratic House leadership wouldn’t raise the subsidy by $800,000, which would have brought them on board.
So, he left suddenly and without a word, hoping to use the weekend to convince one of the sides to move on the issue.
“We’re bringing $24 million of new tax revenue, and we committed $6 million without a blink of an eye to new programs, yet this $800,000 remained a complete stumbling block for leadership,” he said. “I knew the vote was going to come out 5-5, and we could reconsider this week on a motion from any member of the committee.”
That’s exactly what happened, resulting in two 7-4 votes in favor of the tax and the subsidies.
