Don’t pour more money into a broken healthcare system

Dear Editor,

Every attempt at public involvement in healthcare in Vermont in the last 25 years has not only failed, but left Vermont with some of the highest-cost healthcare and insurance in the world — though not the best outcomes.

The public explanations for this situation appear to be tired bull: We are older and sicker and get less money from the government. Until we can publicly explain this train wreck and get some accountability, I would be extraordinarily reluctant to shovel more money into a clearly broken system. What would happen here? I hate to say it, but it wouldn’t be rainbows and unicorns and lollipops — the Vermont hospital monopoly would problem-solve how to maintain a death grip on the market, spend millions of our dollars to maintain it, and deliver inaccessible care while charging higher prices than nearly anywhere in the country.

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The universal care folks need to explain what the hell happened in the last two decades and why it won’t happen again. And no, so-called administrative savings don’t cut it. I just don’t trust the system not to return to its default setting: “Those with the money make the rules.”

Roger Brown Richmond, Vt.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Don’t pour more money into a broken healthcare system.