[gummybearsandrainbows]

Hello!
My family and I are looking at relocating to Vermont. I heard there is a different form of insurance there and am just wanting more information about it. I hear it is called single payer, is this correct? I looked it up online and couldn't really find the information I wanted about it. I was mostly curious on how much it costs a month, what the coverage was, and if there is a sign up period in which if you don't sign up during that period you can't get it until the next sign up.

[Biker53]

Vermont was going to go to a single payer approach but nobody could figure out how to pay for it. For low income people there is the Vermont Health Exchange/Obamacare, same as exists in every other State.

[cgregor]

Vermont could pay for single payer with a payroll tax based on the difference between the average wage of the bottom 50% of employees and the business' owner/CEO. In the case of a mom and pop store, that might be 1:2 (if mom and pop are lucky); in the case of Wal-Mart, it's 1:1,800. So the mom and pop stores around Vermont would pay 1/900th of the payroll tax that Wal-Mart would. The governor never responded to me about that, and the bill died on the wall in Ways and Means in the second half of the biennial session.

[squarpeg]

We have obamacare there are only 2 or 3 insurance companies to choose from. Plans all seem to cost about the same. It is not single payer that was a pipe dream we once had.

[cgregor]

The legislature has been asked to consider "universal primary care," which at a cost of about $50 per person will make it possible for everybody, despite their insurance coverage (or lack thereof) to visit a primary care doctor to treat any condition they might have. This would ensure that everybody gets basic treatment; no need to put off finding out what condition a person has, and in most cases getting it cured.

In some cases, the condition will be something untreatable at the primary care level-- but at least the person will know what it is. There won't be any cases of a person putting off care for lack of an unaffordable co-pay or deductible, only to find out months or years later that it was something it could have or should have been looked at.

So, gummybearsandrainbows, when you move here, be sure to join with a group that is working to make it happen. Register to vote; find the political party amenable to your views; join its committee in your town; and if that committee doesn't already back universal primary care, urge them to do so while you affiliate with an independent group that is working for it to become law.