Vermont becomes first state to move towards a single-payer health care system

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The insurance industry and its allies in the GOP will do everything in their power to kill this plan in the crib. They can't have the existence of a cost-effective single-payer health care system take root at the state level, as Medicare and VA Care have done at the federal level. It would mark the beginning of the end for health-care insurance companies and the beginning of a National Health Care System.

Think Progress reports, BREAKING: Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin Makes History By Signing Into Law Single Payer Health Care:

Last month, the Vermont Senate passed legislation, approved earlier by the House, that would establish a single payer health care system in the state. The legislation would make Vermont the first state in the nation to, as Gov. Peter Shumlin (D) said, make health care “a right and not a privilege.”  

The governor’s office just confirmed for ThinkProgress that Shumlin signed the legislation into law this morning, making the state the first in American history to pass legislation that will establish a single payer health care system to provide care to all citizens. Now that the law is signed, Vermont will spend the next four years setting up the system and preparing it for implementation.

In order to actually enact the system, the state needs a waiver from the Affordable Care Act health reform law. Currently, the federal government will start handing out state waivers in 2017 — three years after Vermont wants to implement its system. 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 [and that the GOP will oppose].