Editor’s note: This commentary is by Dr. Deb Richter, a single-payer health care propoent who is a family physician in Montpelier.
The November elections bring us two candidates for lieutenant governor. One is a Progressive, one is a Republican. The incumbent is a Republican, the challenger is from the Progressive Party. Both are widely regarded as nice guys, as smart guys, as good guys. Meet them on the street and there’s not much to choose between them, and anyway, you might say, the office of lieutenant governor is largely ceremonial.
But there’s this: the most important piece of legislation reaching into the lives of every Vermonter in more than two generations is the universal health care system envisioned — and on its way to implementation — in Act 48. Phil Scott, the Republican incumbent, isn’t sure about it. Dean Corren, the Progressive candidate, is 100 percent for it.
Those of us who have worked for a universal health care system – NOT to be confused with the federal health care insurance exchange – know that in the coming year the implementation of Act 48 is going to need the full and public backing of every possible legislator, including the lieutenant governor whose tie-breaking vote could make a difference.
But this is about policy not personality. Needed is someone in the lieutenant governor’s chair who is openly, strongly, consistently for a publicly funded universal health system, right down to the last vote.
Some prominent Democrats oppose endorsing a Progressive on party-line principles. But affordable health care for all Vermonters is a principle that overrides party principles. Some favor Phil Scott because he is a nice guy. But elections are about effectiveness not niceness. Anyway, the consequences of publicly funding and implementing a universal health care system go way beyond “nice.” They will be life saving.
In November Dean Corren’s name will appear on the Progressive ballot line but I and others would like to see his name appear as both the Democrat and Progressive candidate. In next week’s primary we urge you to write in Dean Corren’s name as the Democrat candidate.
Doing so is a political tactic. It isn’t a challenge to Phil Scott’s nice guy-ness. I’m on the same side as those, many of them Democrats, who think Phil Scott is a nice guy. He is. But this is about policy not personality. Needed is someone in the lieutenant governor’s chair who is openly, strongly, consistently for a publicly funded universal health system, right down to the last vote.
Gov. Shumlin is the first top-tier elected official here – and for that matter in the nation – to stake his reputation and political future on going the whole way – no sneaky half-measures – to get this done. He needs all the help he can get. He needs staunch supporters both out in public and in the halls of the Statehouse. Dean Corren fills that bill.
