It would be inspiring if Vermont were once again a national leader in health care reform efforts.
When Peter Shumlin was governor in the 2010s, reform activism was at a high point, and the possibility of Vermont becoming the first state to implement a single-payer system seemed real. When his administration ran the numbers, after costly studies were done, Shumlin decided that it was not politically feasible to move ahead, and health care reform died in Vermont.
A bill now in the Vermont Legislature aims to revive some of those reform efforts — H.156 — states:
“The purpose of this act is to initiate the incremental implementation of Green Mountain Care by starting to provide comprehensive, affordable, high-quality, publicly financed health care for all Vermonters in accordance with the principles established in 2011 Acts and Resolves No. 48.
Dear Sen. Sanders, I am writing to you because fuel prices are so high that it will become a life-and-death matter this winter. I know you are well aware of this problem, but I am hoping that there is something more that can be done by the United States...
If you want some insight into the problems that current campaign finance laws create, the Vermont Democratic primary for the U.S. House may prove instructive. Windham County state Sen. Becca Balint and Lt. Gov. Molly Gray squared off in what proved to be a lopsided race. Balint handily defeated...
On behalf of some of Windham County's more vulnerable residents, the Windham County Heat Fund thanks our generous community for support of our efforts this year. We created the Windham County Heat Fund in 2005 to help people in Windham County who were not able to buy enough heating fuel to make it through the winter. In 2010 the Heat Fund was incorporated as an IRS 501(c) 3 nonprofit entity. At the time, oil prices were escalating, and we thought...
I am a second-generation American. My grandparents were immigrants. They came from eastern Europe to escape the pogroms and persecution that Jews faced. I often wonder what it was like for them when they arrived in this country. I never did ask them about their experiences. I am thinking about this now because I am experiencing immigration from the perspective of someone welcoming new immigrants to this country. Brattleboro, Vermont has become the home to about 100 people from Afghanistan.
It has been two years since the emergence of the first versions of the Covid virus. The world was slow to figure out what was going on and even slower to figure out ways to deal with this new deadly disease. Despite all of the technology and science that we have developed over the years, Covid continues to make fools of the humans who are trying to beat it. On the surface, it may seem that the best way to...
Engaging in usual forms of commerce makes one believe that the pandemic is a thing of the past. I find it extremely frightening that more people are not wearing masks in public, because the science does tell us that not enough people have been vaccinated to provide the kind of herd immunity that we might need to protect all of us. Fifty-four percent of the U.S. population has received a first dose of vaccine, and 47 percent have received a...
Now that the second Trump impeachment trial has ended in acquittal, it is clear that the Republican party has put the final nail in the coffin of democracy. The Democrats share a lot of the blame, but it is the Republicans who have made it clear that the pursuit of truth is no longer a guiding principle of the American form of government and that justice is an ideal that is not attainable. Politics has always been a dirty business,