Editor’s note: This commentary is by Ellen Schwartz, of Brattleboro, who is the president of the Vermont Workers’ Center.
Last Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass a health care bill that could eliminate health insurance for 24 million Americans, cut Medicaid benefits, and endanger insurance for people with pre-existing conditions — all while giving a significant tax break to the billionaire class.
It’s an enormous affront to low-income and working people, who are already struggling with the premiums and co-pays that our market-based system requires, and it comes at a time when a record number of Americans support moving towards a universal, publicly financed health care system for the country.
In Vermont, we are uniquely positioned to lead the resistance to these attacks on health care by fulfilling the promise of Act 48 and establishing a universal health care system that fully meets our health care needs and is publicly and equitably financed.
The Healthcare is a Human Right movement won passage of Act 48 in 2011, establishing a universal health care system in Vermont. The statute resulting from Act 48 states:
“The purpose of Green Mountain Care is to provide, as a public good, comprehensive, affordable, high-quality, publicly financed health care coverage for all Vermont residents in a seamless and equitable manner regardless of income, assets, health status, or availability of other health coverage.” (33 V.S.A. § 1821).”
However, in 2014, Gov. Peter Shumlin and the Vermont Legislature abandoned that promise made to all Vermont residents despite the administration’s own findings that Green Mountain Care would result in higher net incomes for nine in 10 families. This has resulted in continued suffering and thousands of Vermont residents not being able to get the health care they need.
We need to take advantage of this moment to actually solve the health care crisis. The only way to do that is to treat health care as a public good to which everyone has a human right.
The simple truth is that as long as our health is treated as a commodity, our communities will continue to suffer, and those of us who do have health insurance through employer or government programs will continue to be under the threat of losing the care that we currently have.
We need to take advantage of this moment to actually solve the health care crisis. The only way to do that is to treat health care as a public good to which everyone has a human right.
Finishing the work of establishing universal health care in Vermont is the most effective resistance we can offer to the current administration in Washington. Health care is the issue that can unite people across differences of identity, region and political affiliation.
Given the political reality in Washington, D.C., we can’t afford to wait until Congress passes expanded and improved Medicare for All. It’s time for Vermont’s elected officials to fulfill the promise set forth by Act 48: to treat health care as a human right by finishing the work of designing and funding Green Mountain Care.
