Editor’s note: Trail Mix is an occasional column on Vermont political campaigns.
The Republican from Pomfret remains an agnostic on the subject, though he has taken heat from some members of his party for refusing to be more pointed in his criticism of the Affordable Care Act and the governor’s $1.8 billion to $2.2 million hallmark universal health care policy initiative.
Milne has suggested that the state should “tweak” the problematic, $72 million exchange and “figure out how to have that work.” (Key portions of the Vermont Health Connect website don’t work: Applications can’t be changed and small businesses will not be able to sign up workers for the exchange again this year.)
In an interview over the weekend, Milne defines the word agnostic with a Show Me State motto: “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“There’s a diverse group of people here who have stronger opinions than I do about some of that, and they’ve been pretty blunt in their conversations with me about it,” Milne said. “I think my position is a common sense position that should be sort of a blueprint or foundation of how we’re doing things as a state.”
In case you have difficulty remembering what the word agnosticism means from that college religion class you slept through, the basic idea is: Truth is unknowable. An agnostic neither believes nor disbelieves in God or in a particular ideology.
A fancy word, Milne admits. He cites Adlai Stevenson as an example of politician who wasn’t successful because he talked in a language people didn’t understand. “So, I’m not going to use agnostic anymore.”
To the extent that the Shumlin administration is asking the public to accept his financing plan on faith, Milne has a point. No one, except an elite group of business people who are charged with reviewing plans for funding the new system with taxpayer dollars, knows how Michael Costa, the state’s financing guru, has resolved the complex tax conundrum that would result in a shift in the way Vermonters would pay for health care. Instead of paying premiums, residents of the state would subsidize care through an array of new taxes and increases to old taxes.
Milne wants to run a “fact-based” analysis of the options for single-payer financing that would “look at costs and benefits of single payer and weigh those against the risks.”
He isn’t convinced Gov. Peter Shumlin is committed to single payer because he hasn’t yet released financing details for a taxpayer-funded program, and he has blown off two scheduled deadlines for releasing the information to the Legislature.
“It seems to me if he was (committed) he would have met a legal deadline to tell taxpayers how we’re going to pay for it,” Milne said.
Shumlin could be putting off the news until after the election, Milne speculated, or “it could be a losing battle he doesn’t have the heart for.”
“My sense is single payer isn’t going to fly until we’ve figured out how to pay for it,” Milne said.
Milne pointed to the glitch-ridden Vermont Health Connect website as evidence that the Shumlin administration isn’t ready to take on universal health care.
He also said state’s underfunding of Medicaid reimbursements for health care providers undercuts the governor’s efforts to make the health care system sustainable.
When asked whether he will present his own health care reform plan or, barring that, a set of guiding principles, Milne said: “I don’t know. I want to say yes, but, I mean, I would guess so.
“Clearly, we’re going to need everybody to have access to whatever we can to make it as affordable as possible,” Milne said.
At this point in his nascent campaign, Milne is a bit agnostic on the details.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the administration’s cost projections for a universal health care system.
