Opponents of Vermont’s health care reform efforts have repeatedly railed against the lack of specifics in the health care legislation and the lack of answers on how a new system would be financed and what benefits it would actually offer.
Now even some Democratic supporters of reform are worried about the vagueness of the bill and how long the reform effort will drag out, because it could make it hard to definitively refute people’s fears about reform – whether they are founded or not.
During a caucus of Senate Democrats on Tuesday, Sen. Anthony Pollina, a Washington County Democrat, said he heard from one woman who said he shouldn’t support reform because it would increase her Medicaid payments.
“I said, ‘We don’t even know what we’re looking at yet,’” Pollina told his fellow lawmakers at the caucus.
Pollina said he also got an e-mail from someone in Baghdad, Iraq wondering how the Legislature was tampering with his military health benefits.
Sen. Philip Baruth, a Chittenden County Democrat, is the one who raised the concern about the lack of details in legislation. The vagueness – and the fact that reform is going to be a multi-year effort – means we’re “going to be defending against death panels for 18 to 24 months,” Baruth said.
Baruth didn’t have a solution to the problem, but at one point during the caucus, Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell gave some words of encouragement for lawmakers.
Campbell, who has vowed to pass health care legislation through the Senate this year, said there are people who want to cut the legs out from under health care reform no matter what the bill contains.
“I would say just hold tight,” said Campbell.
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