Universal health care supporters out in force across Vermont

 A group responsible for galvanizing grassroots support for universal health care is out in force today at town meeting venues across the state.
Volunteers with the Health Care is a Human Right Campaign have taken up posts in more than 50 towns and cities. At some polling stations, campaign volunteers are snapping photos of citizens holding a sign that reads “Health Care is a Human Right.” Those pictures will later be delivered to elected officials in Montpelier.
“We certainly weren’t going to miss the opportunity of people getting together on the most democratic day of the year to talk about how we can inject democracy into our health care, which is almost nonexistent right now,” James Haslam, executive director of the Vermont Workers Center, which has organized the campaign, said today.
House Republicans last week urged their constituents to use Town Meeting Day as an opportunity to press their elected representatives on some of the harder questions surrounding the single-payer proposal, namely: How much will cost? And who’s going to pay?
Haslam says Republicans aren’t the only ones with questions.
“The conservatives are trying to raise questions about how this will work, but we also have questions,” Haslam said. “That’s why for us it is so important to get into Vermont communities, and make sure the system we move towards is one that is really accountable to our community. We need to have some way to participate in decisions about something as important to us as our health care.”