Health Care – East and West
Vermont Governor Shumlin was on Diane Rehm on
April 27 talking about the universal health care system bill he is going to sign into law. Cato Institute sent a talking head to spew disinformation on behalf of health care capitalism and insurance CEO salaries. To understand these folks you really have to watch Thank You for Smoking. Great movie.
Anyway, Vermont is storming ahead toward a single payer universal health care system that will pay on basis of healthy outcomes instead of fee for service. Managed care and managed cost? Well, we will have to wait and see, but it looks good to me.
Meanwhile, in Olympia, the Washington Governor and legislators don’t know how to close tax loopholes to generate revenue to keep the doors open, so Washington’s limited program Basic Health is on the chopping block along with all sorts of critical services.
If you want to lean on the legislators to close the loopholes, here are the bills in the Special Session currently underway. Passing these bills generates revenue and funds education and health care.
- SB 5944 – Existing tax exemptions should be put to a vote of the people
- SB 5945 – Modifies excise taxes and raises revenue
- SB 5946 – Strengthen compliance measures for collection of excise taxes
- SB 5947 – Eliminates certain non-essential tax exemptions
Call your legislators, or better yet, come to Olympia and mobilize under the dome. The class war is on, are you sitting on your hands?