BRATTLEBORO, Vermont — Vermont became the first state to lay the groundwork for single-payer health care on Thursday when its governor signed an ambitious bill aimed at establishing universal insurance coverage for all residents.
“This law recognizes an economic and fiscal imperative,” Democratic Governor Peter Shumlin said as he signed the bill into law at the State House.
“We must control the growth in health care costs that are putting families at economic risk and making it harder for small employers to do business.”
Legislators say the plan, approved by the Democratic controlled House and Senate this spring, aims to extend coverage to all 620,000 residents while containing soaring health care costs.
A key component establishes a state health benefits exchange, as mandated by new federal health care laws, that will offer coverage from private insurers, state-sponsored and multi-state plans. It also will include tax credits to make premiums affordable for uninsured Vermonters.
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I would like to respond the idea of a single payer healthcare system by quoting from David Hogberg’s article “Free Market Cure – The Myths of Single-Payer Health Care.” He notes:
A single-payer health care system is one in which a single-entity — the government — collects almost all of the revenue for and pays almost all of the bills for the health care system. In most single-payer systems only a small percentage of health care expenses are paid for with private funds. Countries that have a single-payer system include Australia, Canada, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
Single-payer is popular among the political left in the United States. Leftists have emitted tons of propaganda in favor of a single-payer system, much of which has fossilized into myth.
Here are some of the more prominent single-payer myths:
Myth No. 1: Everyone has access to health care a single-payer system.
Everyone in a single-payer system has health insurance, not necessarily health care.
While the government in a single-payer system will pay for everyone’s health care, it limits the access to health care. In a single-payer system, citizens often believe that “the government” is paying for their health care. When people perceive that someone else is paying for something, they tend to over-use it. In a single-payer health care system, people over-use health care. This puts strain on government health care budgets, and to contain costs governments must ration care.
Governments in a single-payer system ration care using waiting lists for surgery and diagnostic procedures and by canceling surgeries. As the Canadian Supreme Court said upon ruling unconstitutional a Quebec law that banned private health care, “access to a waiting list is not access to health care.
The Daily Hatch 