Vermont now leads the way in our nation on health care!

Vermont is now leading the way in our nation towards a civilized, rational and cost-effective form of health care. The state has passed a bill establishing a Single Payer system.

That’s right, everyone in the state of Vermont will have the right of health insurance coverage, a Medicare for Everyone type of health care.

Imagine, if you will, the security of never fearing you are just one pink slip away from a health care related financial disaster or knowing that you will not have to declare bankruptcy if you lose your job and have a pre-existing condition like Multiple Sclerosis.

You will always be able to pay into a Single Payer system and be covered. And the more people in the pool, the more costs are contained.

Here’s Vermont for Single Payer dot org’s Top 10 Reasons for the Single Payer system.

Think Progress has been reporting on this and here is a link to the article. However, there still are some hurdles to a civil society:

A bigger hurdle Vermont faces is obtaining a waiver from the federal health care reform act and finding a way around federal ERISA laws — which “pre-empt states from enacting legislation if it is ‘related to’ employee benefit plans” –- that insurers could use to sue the state. The health reform law currently offers a waiver to states who meet certain standards by 2017. Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) has introduced an amendment that would move the waiver date up to 2014 — an idea that President Obama has endorsed.

For those of  you unfamiliar with ERISA laws, be glad you are. The federal ERISA (Employee Retirement Incoms Security Act) laws were in enacted in 1974 and meant to protect employees from having their pension funds ravaged by crooked CEOs. It also covers health plans and there’s the problem. More on ERISA here, here and here. Please read these links, they explain everything in detail.

The health insurance companies like ERISA laws since it helps them NOT pay out claims or holds them liable for any wrong-doing. It’s why Nataline Sarkisyan’s parents could not sue CIGNA when they denied their 17 year old daughter a liver transplant and she died. Nataline had leukemia.

“The most important federal insurance regulation of the past generation is ERISA,” says Tom Baker, deputy dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School in Philadelphia. “If ever a law backfired for the public, ERISA is the perfect example.”

During the debate over the Affordable Care Act two specifics were brought to the table to help the consumer. The first was get rid of ERISA for health plans. Guess what? The insurance lobby (AHIP) won on that one and we still have it.

And the second was get rid of the McCarran Ferguson Act of 1945, the one where the insurance industry is immune to Federal Anti-Trust Laws (like Major League Baseball). You guessed it, the insurance lobby won out again over the consumer.

If you are a believer in states’ rights then I urge you to write your members of Congress and tell them to do away with these two federal laws and put the rights back in the hands of your state. You’ll be healthier! And Single Payer or Medicare for Everyone.

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