Meet Gov. Peter Shumlin: The ANTI Scott Walker

ANALYSIS — A Canadian-Style Single-Payer Health System in Vermont? MONTPELIER, Vt. — Chances are you’ve never heard of Peter Shumlin, who last month was sworn in as the 81st governor or Vermont. That’s about to change. If Shumlin makes good on a signature campaign promise, he might end up as well-known and beloved in the United States as Tommy Douglas is in Canada. OK, maybe you’ve never heard of... [more]

ANALYSIS — A Canadian-Style Single-Payer Health System in Vermont? MONTPELIER, Vt. — Chances are you’ve never heard of Peter Shumlin, who last month was sworn in as the 81st governor or Vermont. That’s about to change. If Shumlin makes good on a signature campaign promise, he might end up as well-known and beloved in the United States as Tommy Douglas is in Canada. OK, maybe you’ve never heard of Tommy Douglas, either. A former Baptist preacher and member of the Canadian parliament, Douglas is considered the father of Canada’s popular government-run medical insurance program. If you’re surprised to learn that Canadians like that system, it’s probably because you’ve been convinced otherwise by a years-long propaganda campaign from American insurers — a campaign I used to help carry out as an industry PR executive. Shumlin is hoping to do in Vermont what Douglas accomplished first as premier of Saskatchewan — implement a publicly financed system that guarantees universal access to medical care and controls costs better than private insurers. If Shumlin pulls it off, other states undoubtedly will attempt the same thing, just as other Canadian provinces followed Saskatchewan’s lead. Toward the end of his nearly two decades in the Vermont General Assembly, Shumlin concluded that the uniquely American multi-payer system of private health insurance firms was actually fueling medical inflation and thwarting the state’s efforts to provide coverage for all of its citizens. It was an unsustainable system, he believed — one that would not only force more Vermonters into the ranks of the uninsured, but would ultimately bankrupt the state. So Sumlin did something about it. As president of the Vermont Senate, he co-sponsored legislation last year that may eventually help reduce if not eliminate private health insurers in the Granite State, at least in providing coverage for basic medical care. Late last week, Rutland Mayor Christopher Louras, also a Republican, surprised lawmakers in urging adoption of single-payer legislation, arguing that the current system was more than a little broken. “The only way to fix the problem is to blow it up and start over,” he said, noting that Rutland’s health care costs would consume $3 million of his city’s $7 million payroll in 2011. Vermonters were the first to abolish slavery in the United States. Many folks here, including the freshly minted governor, are determined to be the first to abolish private health insurers, just as Canada did under Tommy Douglas’s leadership several decades ago. http://www.publicintegrity.org/articles/entry/2953/ [less]