Vermont's health care system is broken, but it's not beyond repair, according to Dr. William Hsiao, who has been hired by the Legislature to design three medical care reform plans for Vermont.
Fully integrating reforms, however, could take as long as 12 years, Hsiao told an audience of about 100 people at the Statehouse on Dec. 14.
Hsiao made the remarks at a hearing before the Vermont Health Care Committee. He and his team gave the committee a status update on their research for the full report Hsiao will deliver to lawmakers on Jan. 19, which will be followed by a two-week public comment period and then a two-week period for Hsiao and his group to make changes to the three plans. The final report will be presented on Feb. 17.
Hsiao, a Harvard economist and architect of Taiwan's single-payer system, is charged with fulfilling the criteria set out in Act 128 for the design of three health care models that provide universal access and high quality care to Vermonters. The approaches to health care - single payer, public option, and a third option to be determined by Hsiao and his staff - will be considered by the Legislature in the next session.
For those of us who have been working for a safe and timely closure of Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant as scheduled in 2012, this has been an extraordinary year. Much has changed in the past 12 months. Reflecting on this period, it is impossible not to feel proud...
CelebrateVT, the official inaugural committee for Governor-elect Peter Shumlin, has announced the details for the events surrounding the inauguration. According to Mary Powell, the inaugural chairwoman and President/Chief Executive Officer of Green Mountain Power, the Vermont National Guard Charitable Foundation will benefit from all proceeds from inaugural events. In...
The Rutland Raiders have had the Brattleboro Colonels' number in girls hockey for the past five years, most recently when Rutland knocked them out of the playoffs last season. That made last Wednesday's 1-0 win over the Raiders at Nelson Withington Rink that much sweeter for the Colonels. Brattleboro - which lost its opening game to Northfield, 2-0, on Dec. 11 - came out against the Raiders playing what Colonels coach Linda Burke called “smart, disciplined hockey.” Great defense and...
There are more than 4,000 nonprofit organizations in Vermont - ranging in size and scope from the University of Vermont to the Brattleboro Historical Society. These organizations provide essential health and human services, arts and culture, community development, environmental stewardship, education, and a host of other services in every county of the state. But this sector - which generates $4.1 billion in revenue and accounts for nearly one-fifth of the Vermont gross state product - and the vital role it...
Beginning with an August 2005 tomato canning workshop in a church kitchen, Post Oil Solutions (Re)learning to Feed Ourselves workshop series has expanded to 40 workshops over the past two years, serving more than 700 people. The series continues in 2011, and Post Oil Solutions will be partnering with the Grafton Nature Museum (www.nature-museum.org), which will co-sponsor workshops in February in Bellows Falls. Robert King of Putney will again lead the January-February gardening workshops. The series will kick-off with four...
In Vermont, cable television operators are required to provide public, educational, and government (PEG) access programming, and provide the equipment and facilities to produce local programming as a condition of receiving a Certificate of Public Good (CPG) from the Public Service Board (PSB). For the past 10 years, Brattleboro Community Television (BCTV) has filled that role for Southern Vermont Cable Co. (SVC), which serves the towns of Newfane, Townshend, Dummerston, Putney, and Jamaica. “We want to provide public access programming...
I write this letter in regard to the recent budgets proposed for the Leland & Gray Union High School music department. This letter comes from a freshman who has recently left the cozy, comfortable world of southern Vermont for the much broader horizon of “the real world” at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in upstate New York. College is an incredible learning opportunity that needs to be taken advantage of in a world where job opportunities are becoming rapidly more...
At the Vermont Citizens Campaign for Health's recent annual meeting, two members of Dr. William Hsiao's team presented early findings gleaned from interviews with professionals, elected officials, and advocacy groups involved with health care in Vermont. Ashley Fox, Ph.D., and Nathan Blanchet, a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard, said Vermont is in a unique position to remain a health care reform “trailblazer.” They cautioned that this wouldn't prove easy and would require, above all, a sense of unity among elected officials,
Green Mountain National Forest (GMNF) officials recommend that snowmobilers exercise caution when operating on National Forest, and all lands, in Vermont this winter. Weather permitting, snowmobile use is allowed on designated trails within the Green Mountain National Forest for the next four months through Friday, April 15, 2011. “Given the significant number of injuries and fatalities that occurred last season, we are concerned about user safety. Patrols which are aimed at enforcing rules and regulations, monitoring trail conditions, and providing...
This is our last issue of The Commons for 2010. Our staff will be taking next week off to catch our breaths after a busy seven months of transforming the paper from a monthly to a weekly. This week's paper also marks the end of our first full five years of publication. It's been an exciting time here, and thanks to the support we have received from our readers, advertisers, and donors, we're moving ever closer to realizing the vision...
Obituaries Editor's note: The Commons will publish brief biographical information for citizens of Windham County and others, on request, as community news, free of charge. • Marjorie “GG” Raymond Estey, 78, of Springfield. Died Nov. 30 at her home. Wife of the late Russell W. Estey. Mother of Karen Peck, Ellen Graham, Raymond Estey (Joanna), and Alison Lillie (Arnold) of Springfield; and Lynette Potter (Mike) of Greenfield, N.H. Predeceased by siblings Clayton (Tracky), Robert, Beverly, and Maxine. Born in Bellows...
The Selectboard agreed to make an addendum to Brattleboro's municipal health care plan during a short special meeting last Tuesday. As of Jan. 1, 2011, the town will adopt the High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) for the remainder of union contracts. The town will pay 100 percent of the new plan's premium and contribute one-half of the annual deductible into a health savings account. The HDHP replaces the town's current Open Access Plus Health Plan. The change will affect union...
Nancy Systo grew up next door to Tom Smith in Guilford. Both homes had lots of children. Both Nancy and Tom are graduates of Brattleboro Union High School. Several years later, when Nancy went to college in the Burlington area, she reconnected with Tom, by then an engineer with IBM. They fell in love and, in 1986, they married. The pair has six children, and they all live on a small farm in Charlotte, where they home-school their kids. When...
Works on Paper's gallery at 7 The Square is exhibiting a collection of drawings, Figments of the Imagination, by local artist Gil Perry. This is the first time his drawings have been seen together as a comprehensive body of work. The drawings will be on display through Jan. 21. Perry's drawings are incredibly detailed imaginations built up by intensely layered marks of graphite and ink on the paper. “I reach a state of wonder and discovery when I draw,” he...
Brattleboro is a town with curbside pick-up of recyclables, a mandatory recycling ordinance, and a population largely concerned with environmental issues - yet only 19 percent of its residents recycle. The new town recycling coordinators, Moss Kahler and Cindy Sterling, seek to raise that 19 to a full 100 percent. This winter, the duo has begun working to identify which habits or systems contribute to the low rate. The town enacted a recycling ordinance in the 1990s, making recycling mandatory.
If you've made the drive along Route 5 between Westminster and Bellows Falls, or walked around downtown Bellows Falls over the past two months, you may recognize the expression “Parents Who Host Lose the Most - Don't be a Party to Teenage Drinking.” The campaign, sponsored by the Greater Falls Prevention Coalition, encourages parents to consider the consequences of providing teens with alcohol. This campaign promotes community awareness around social hosting and the far-reaching implications such activity can have on...
It must be an epidemic. Google “coping with holiday stress,” and you'll find enough advice from psychologists, life coaches, health clinics, etiquette mavens, and other “experts” to keep you in reading material for all the holidays of your life. My cursory research has revealed that the experts have boarded the same bus headed toward the elusive destination called sanity. Get organized. Don't overindulge in food, alcohol, or spending. Avoid shopping malls. Make time to exercise and rest. Learn to say...
Another new primary care doctor is joining the Brattleboro Memorial Hospital medical staff. Lauren McClure, MD, a board-certified family practitioner, is in the process of opening her brand new office. Dr. McClure will be seeing patients as of early January at space owned by John Daly, MD. His offices are on 191 Clark Ave. (across Canal Street from the hospital). In the meantime, she has set up a phone line which will have a voicemail for people to leave a...
Entergy Corp. has agreed to resume pumping tritiated groundwater from the soils within the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant compound by the end of December. The Louisiana-based corporation has also said it will step up its environmental monitoring efforts. Gov.-elect Peter Shumlin toured Vermont Yankee on Friday and met with Entergy officials to discuss a formal request he issued to the company and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In his letter last week to Michael Colomb, Vermont Yankee site vice-president, and...
University of Vermont professor Frank Bryan will discuss the history of ranking presidential “greatness” and consider the Obama presidency in a talk at Brattleboro's Brooks Memorial Library on Jan. 5. His talk, “The Impossible Presidency and Obama's Chance for Greatness,” is part of the Vermont Humanities Council's First Wednesdays lecture series and takes place at 7 p.m. Bryan will point out that though scholars rank several presidents as “great” who served prior to 1952, there is no agreement that the...
Lisa McCormick, one of the lead guitar instructors at GuitarTricks.com, has just released a new educational program for guitar learners, Chord Theory Magic, Just for Guitar. GuitarTricks.com has licensed the program, to be distributed to the site's thousands of subscribers as a holiday season gift. GuitarTricks.com founder, Jon Broderick, explains why he chose McCormick's product: “We were thrilled to give a copy of Lisa McCormick's Chord Theory Magic, Just for Guitar to all of our full-access subscribers to Guitar Tricks...
Four of the town's parking lots will get new pay-and-display machines. Harris, Harmony, High Grove and Preston lots will each receive a new machine. Three of the machines will accept coins and the town's parking Smart Cards. The final machine, slated for the Harmony Lot, will also accept dollar bills. The cost for the units, installation, and enabling use of the Smart Cards totals $47,950. The town had considered setting up the machines to accept credit cards but decided the...
Lead Safe Homes announces the hiring of outreach specialist Allyson Wendt. Working closely with program director Michelle Pong, Wendt will participate in several educational opportunities aimed at contractors, landlords, parents, and others for whom lead is a concern. “I've long been interested in creating and encouraging safe, sustainable housing,” said Wendt. “Making people aware of lead hazards and helping them understand how to work around lead safely is a big part of that effort.” In addition, Wendt will focus on...
Why isn't Brattleboro talking strategically about parking? Why doesn't it reconsider not just the meters in the Harris lot, but the whole way parking is managed townwide? Brattleboro's Parking Enforcement department is an “enterprise” agency, which means it's like a business that has to pay for itself, and hopefully make a little money for the town from parking fees and fines. But while breaking even is a good goal, it's more important to have parking policies that maximize convenience to...
By the time this column is printed, the voters in Newfane will have decided whether or not to jettison their zoning bylaws. I've read these bylaws, I've attended the public hearings, and I've voted. But whatever the outcome, the issue will not be settled; there will be discontent. Indeed, even more than the issue of zoning, what the zoning petition has exposed is a raw nerve of civic displeasure. The events that brought the zoning issue to the forefront were...
The ballot measure to abolish Newfane's zoning bylaw was soundly defeated Monday as residents of Newfane, Williamsville, and South Newfane voted 326 to 103 to retain the land use laws adopted in 1975. A stream of more than a third of the town's 1,360 registered voters, out of a population of about 1,800, drifted through the polling lines at the NewBrook Fire Station from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. to defeat the measure by about a three-to-one margin. Monday's vote...
Sharp differences between the Leland & Gray Union High School administration and the public were highlighted last Tuesday night as the LGUHS School Board voted to accept the proposed fiscal year 2012 budget by a vote of 10-4. The budget of more than $6.3 million is nearly level-funded and will require no property tax increase. The public will vote by Australian ballot on the budget as proposed Wednesday, Feb. 2. A budget information meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 5,