Seven Washington County House and Senate members held an active
dialogue with the audience, listening to personal stories of health
care system malaise and responding with stories of real concern
themselves... stories that reflected the difficulty of holding one's
intent amidst the pressure of politics. Almost unanimously they called
for the collective and individual voices of citizens to keep them on
task.
"The problem with health care is us, your elected officials," said Paul
Poirier, representative, Barre. "Every two years we promise this, and
at the end of the two years where are we? We, as politicians are afraid
to stand up and say this needs to be done. What are we doing? Zero!
People are afraid to alienate people. We have to stand up. We're asking
for your help. We tell you we're going to do something yet we do
nothing. So hold us accountable this year. Help!"
Poirier's thoughts were seconded by Francis McFaun, representative,
Barre Town: "We talk about things and what we have to do, but we don't
walk the talk," he said. "We want to get re-elected....and if we go for
health care, we know we won't." Here was a call, loud and clear, from
our representatives for our voice, our insistence, to hold them to the
task at hand.
There was discussion of support for bills H.100/S.88, Vermont
single-payer health care bills which propose to establish the goal of
universal access to essential healthcare services in Vermont. To this
discussion Washington County Senator Ann Cummings offered the query:
"What roadblocks exist to block these bills? For the poor it's fear,
they can't envision what it looks like; for the wealthy they can't
envision what they'll lose."
The task," Cummings pointed out, calls for tremendous voice, a collective conscience."
Washington County Senator Bill Doyle noted the idea of "health care as
a public good, provided for the good of all, not for a select group and
not for profit, where everyone contributes to their ability."
"It is important," he noted, "that we figure out something that fits Vermont, the way we want to do it."
Sadly, for those of us attending the forum from the Mad River Valley,
neither of our state legislators were present, neither Adam Greshin
representing the Waitsfield-Warren legislative district nor Maxine Grad
representing Moretown were able to share their thought and listen to
ours on this critical issue.
This public forum on health care was organized by community members who
have been conducting person to person research as part of the
Healthcare as a Human Right campaign, which examines the impact that
the broken health system is having in our community and seeks to change
what is politically possible in health care reform. A focus to bring to
the attention of ourselves, our neighbors and our legislators that
health care is a basic human right, and recognized as such in the
United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.
Just recently the Christian Science Monitor noted that two state
legislatures, Vermont and California, have in fact passed single-payer
legislation only to have them vetoed by Republican governors. Either of
these states could soon become the first to pass a statewide, public
healthcare system that covers everyone. "I think it makes sense to push
for single-payer bills on a statewide level. It looks pretty grim in
Washington....so we are mobilizing our forces," said Dr. Deb Richter,
founder of Vermont Health Care for All.
This was echoed by James Haslma, director of the Vermont Worker's
Center, "Healthcare is a Human Right" campaign. "There is a lot of
excitement around this issue," he said. "Vermont could become a model
for the rest of the country."
Elsbeth lives in Waitsfield.
