Vermont first state to implement single-payer health care (25May11)

[Glia]

From Portside:
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1. Vermont, the Land of Healthy Firsts

by Amy Goodman

TruthDig
May 25, 2011

https://www.truthdig.com/report/item...rsts_20110524/

Vermont is a land of proud firsts. This small New England
state was the first to join the 13 Colonies. Its
constitution was the first to ban slavery. It was the first
to establish the right to free education for all - public
education.

This week, Vermont will boast another first: the first state
in the nation to offer single-payer health care, which
eliminates the costly insurance companies that many believe
are the root cause of our spiraling health care costs. In a
single-payer system, both private and public health care
providers are allowed to operate, as they always have. But
instead of the patient or the patient's private health
insurance company paying the bill, the state does. It's
basically Medicare for all - just lower the age of
eligibility to the day you 're born. The state, buying these
health care services for the entire population, can
negotiate favorable rates, and can eliminate the massive
overhead that the for-profit insurers impose. ...
[read the rest at the link above]

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Single-Payer Health Care

by Zaid Jilani,

Think Progress
May 26, 2011

https://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/26...-single-payer/

Last month, the Vermont Senate passed legislation, approved
earlier by the House, that would establish a single payer
health care system in the state. The legislation would make
Vermont the first state in the nation to, as Gov. Peter
Shumlin (D) said, make health care "a right and not a
privilege."

The governor's office just confirmed for ThinkProgress that
Shumlin signed the legislation into law this morning, making
the state the first in American history to pass legislation
that will establish a single payer health care system to
provide care to all citizens. Now that the law is signed,
Vermont will spend the next four years setting up the system
and preparing it for implementation. ...
[read the rest at the link above]