Gov. Peter Shumlin’s critics, liberal and conservative alike, have always doubted his resolve to create the nation’s first single-payer health care system.
On Wednesday afternoon, Shumlin proved them prescient.
In an extraordinary about-face, the man who built his political career on the promise of bringing universal, affordable health insurance to Vermont said that, within the last five days, he had suddenly concluded that doing so would damage the state’s economy.
“It became clear that the risk of economic shock is too high at this time to offer a plan that I can responsibly support for passage in the legislature,” Shumlin told a rapt crowd in a first-floor hearing room of the Statehouse.
His decision to scrap his own, long-promised plan and move forward with more modest reforms, he said, was “the greatest disappointment of my political life, so far.”
No doubt it was equally disappointing to those who took Shumlin at his word when he first ran for governor in 2010 pledging to “get tough things done” like turning single-payer from liberal dream to reality. Or to those who believed him when he said it again two years later during his 2012 race for reelection — or again two years after that.
Indeed, as Shumlin formally launched his latest campaign this September, he drew enormous applause when he singled out Vermont Health Care for All founder Deb Richter and her quest for single-payer.
“And with Deb in my sights, we are moving forward on the nation’s first single-payer health care system that contains cost, takes the burden off of employers and simplifies the system for all Vermonters,” Shumlin told an audience of supporters during a rally at Burlington’s Main Street Landing. “I was elected to get tough things done and this may well be the toughest, but I will not rest until it is done.”
Apparently, he decided to take a breather after all.
During Wednesday’s press conference, Vermont Public Radio’s Peter Hirschfeld asked Shumlin whether he regretted looking Richter in the eye at that September announcement, promising once again to finish the job.
“Do you wish that you hadn’t told people that you were going to get this done over the past four years?” Hirschfeld asked.
“You know, I wish that the finances had worked better than they do for Vermont,” Shumlin responded. “And you have to ask yourself when you run for governor and you’re lucky enough to be elected, ‘Do you want to take on the big challenges? Or do you want to refuse to take political risk because you’re fearful that it might have political ramifications that you don’t like?’”
He continued: “My view about leadership is, take on the big issues, try to get after the things that are really holding Vermonters back and think big to try to get tough things done. And that’s just who I am. So do I regret who I am? No.”
That’s a mighty generous characterization of his own follow-through. From the outside, at least, it appears that Shumlin simply sought to reap the political rewards of a promise he could not deliver on and then flinched before “tak[ing] on the big challenges” of defending it in front of the business community and the legislature.
Of course, anyone who’s listened closely to the governor’s rhetoric in recent months should have seen the Great Cave coming. Even as he promised a panacea to his liberal supporters, Shumlin winked and nodded to everybody else and left a mile-wide opening through which he could escape.
Calling himself “one of the most pro-business, anti-tax governors that you’ve seen in a long time” during an appearance on VPR’s “Vermont Edition” in September, Shumlin said, “If we come up with a financing plan that doesn’t grow jobs, economic opportunity and make Vermont more prosperous, trust me, we’re not gonna do it.”
At least Shumlin kept one of his promises.
To be sure, the governor sounded eminently sincere and completely reasonable Wednesday when he laid out the enormous obstacles in the path of implementing a fiscally sustainable single-payer system.
The taxes required for a plan providing sufficient benefits to make the transition worthwhile, he said, were “in a word, ‘enormous.’” Taxing employers 11.5 percent of their payroll and all Vermonters up to 9.5 percent of their income would be enormously disruptive — even if it resulted in the savings Shumlin spent years promising. And the logistical hurdles he cited were equally compelling: the difficulty of obtaining a federal waiver, the expense of easing small businesses into the system and Vermont’s worsening revenue forecasts.
But Shumlin is a very smart man. His top health care advisers — Robin Lunge, Michael Costa and Lawrence Miller — deeply understand health care policy. So it is literally beyond belief that they didn’t see these challenges coming. The notion that they obtained some new scrap of data last Friday that utterly changed the game is entirely implausible.
More plausible is that Shumlin finally recognized the unmistakable political reality that he was unlikely to sign into law anything close to what he’d been promising for years — so he decided to just cut his losses.
After narrowly winning a plurality of the vote last month, Shumlin found himself with little political capital — and his putative allies in the legislature showed no sign of coming to his assistance.
It’s been clear for months that the governor lacked the votes to pass single-payer in the Senate. House Speaker Shap Smith (D-Morristown) and the leaders of his Democratic caucus have made plain that they’re far more interested in tackling education finance in the coming legislative session. And even Burlington Progressives, who ostensibly believe in nothing more than universal health care — such as Sen. Tim Ashe (D/P-Chittenden) and activist attorney John Franco — have distanced themselves from the administration’s approach.
In a column for VTDigger.org, the generally astute Jon Margolis argued late Wednesday that, “Politically, Shumlin is likely to gain from his loss.”
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Blood was already in the water after Shumlin nearly fell to political novice Scott Milne in November. Now that the governor has capitulated to those who’ve always opposed his signature policy priority, he has forfeited the perception that his political skills are to be feared and respected. More importantly, he has lost any remaining credibility that he means what he says.
In one of the more bizarre statements he made Wednesday, Shumlin said, “I recognize that it may be hard to put this news in perspective given the scrutiny it has received over the past four years.”
“The scrutiny it has received over the past four years?” Really? Already, it seems, Shumlin has adopted a passive voice, shrugging his shoulders as if he’s confused about why anyone expected him to actually deliver the goods.
Now that his political Ponzi scheme has tumbled to the ground, what is left is the shell of a governorship, devoid of credibility and purpose.
Since Milne made clear in the days after the election that he would not concede to Shumlin, the incumbent has said that he would not want to be governor if he had not won the most votes. What’s unclear now is why Shumlin would want to be governor if he’d come to the conclusion that he was unable to keep the promises he made to get elected.
Related Stories
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
Do not underestimate the people of Vermont! We want universal health care coverage for Vermonters, and we will see that it happens!
My interpretation: the Governor too is utterly convinced and persuaded that Universal Health Care should happen. But as early as six months ago, prominent advocates such as State Senator Peter Galbraith were saying that if implemented on the Legislature’s deadline (2017), “single payer” would “destroy the Vermont Democratic Party”. Why would he say such a thing?
The reason is that there is an absolute categorical imperative for true health care reform to effectively dismantle the current system. The reason the current system is so harmful is twofold: (1) because it is humongously expensive; and (2) because many people cannot afford health care as a result. The reason it is so expensive is that it is the vehicle for enormous profits for investors. Obscenely high profit margins prevail in the for-profit areas of the health care industry, especially in pharmaceuticals and in physician specializations. And of course the reason that many people are denied health care is obvious … they lack the incomes to purchase it.
Implementation of single-payer universal health care needs to remain the objective of health care reform in Vermont. But it requires a stronger legislative mandate, for one thing. Laws supplementing the current acts have to be written and passed that will allow the government of the State of Vermont to mandate the consolidation of various companies now based in Vermont who insure Vermonters, and take away the Vermont policyholder base of companies located outside of Vermont. Current laws failed to foresee the difficulty of doing this.
Here is what the end result of single payer should look like: the health insurance of all Vermonters will be consolidated into one company. Green Mountain Care is proposed to become that company. But perhaps there are not sufficient assurances that the process of devolving the covered policyholders of all companies into the coverage umbrella of one company will change the health care system in Vermont in a manner sufficient to effectively demolish the current paradigm, which allows for windfall profits and astoundingly high salaries and incomes to those employed in the system at the current time.
What I have proposed is that the ultimate single payer company be constituted as a mutual health insurance company, owned by its policyholders (the people of Vermont), that profit-taking be forbidden to it, that the funds which support it should be segregated from the Vermont government’s general fund and established legally as a Trust for public health care, that Trustees be appointed (initially) then elected over time by the policyholders, and that the Trustees would have the legislative mandate to maximize coverage while minimizing expenses. It might also be helpful if some sort of law is passed forbidding people in Vermont from profiting (beyond some definite point) off the suffering of others.
So what is going to happen? New legislation will be written that extends the timeline for implementation of single-payer universal health care. Different groups of people’s legitimate concerns will be addressed, such as allowing Medicare and the Federal employees’ health insurance systems to be ‘grandfathered’ into the new scheme as ‘primary payors’. A timeline will be composed which tracks the consolidation of all other existing health care systems in the state, and legislative mandates will be written and passed which permit this to happen. But not by 2017.
And when Vermont has done what it needs to do to guarantee health care coverage to all Vermonters, it will not be “single payer” because there will still be a handful of other “legacy” payers involved. So yes, the Governor is right on the money … it is money difficulties which render impossible the implementation of “single payer” by 2017. The reality is that there will never be “single payer” until the region, or the entire country, adopt it. Until then, there will still be multiple payers. The opportunity still exists to overturn and replace the current terribly expensive and exclusive system … and we can, and must, do it.
He has been spending a lot of time with his twenty-something girlfriend and seems to have different priorities in his life other than coming up with viable solutions for major problems in Vermont and the US. We are all spending a great deal of money on health insurance, and transferring that burden more equitably to save money throughout the system is more than a good idea and way past due on the national level as well as the local. Caving like this at the last minute is pretty much the behavior I have come to expect from this governor.
This venture into leftist La la land was a good exercise, hopefully future elitists will examine it with care.
I am advocate for single-payer so I am disappointed that it couldn’t be done in Vermont – at least not now. And I am not a big fan of Peter Shumlin, however, I think this announcement took courage and leadership and I applaud him for it. I respect him for pursuing a big idea and staking his political identity to that idea, and I also respect him for knowing when not to fight. I think he made the right decision to push as hard as he did for single-payer, and he made the right decision to back away at this time.
Why does this commentator put the delay and lack of success finding a financially viable single payer health care plan on Governor Shumlin? Who else and what other state has worked harder toward this goal?
What all the studies and research have now clearly shown, is that regardless of various sources of funding when all Vermont citizens are covered, the money has to be worked out first. We have to reform our patchwork of big insurance companies, Medicare, state programs and Medicaid, supplemented by underfunded community health and mental health centers, since it is inequitable and not viable. As a result of the mess that exists, the overwhelming cost of health care has become a consequence that no one wants.
As far as I can see, Vermont and Governor Shumlin have made a good start.
Harsh – but after a poorly run campaign that landed the governor where he is today – this seems like it needs to be said.
No matter what is spun to us over the next 48 hours – all that actually changed was nearly snatching defeat from the jaws of easy victory.
The governor will speak of unexpected headwinds – but there always are ‘unexpected headwinds’ where courage lives.
Cant wait to see if any campaign contributions roll in from the insurancezilla from him retreating on this.
Scott, I know what you mean, and Paul definitely does turn up the incredulous dismay. OTOH, you could argue (and, I guess, I am) that the fact that the piece’s headline starts with “Analysis” gives the writer a little more leeway to be opinionated than would be acceptable in a straight-ahead piece of reportage. Your point’s definitely well taken, though.
Paul, I take issue with your tone in this. It’s pretty mean spirited and not objective which I have come to expect and respect from you. If you looked at the numbers closely, than you would see we cannot do this fiscally and with state revenues having been downgraded twice this FY and possibly another time come January — I can see many variables in the decision and understand it. I am a supporter of single payer but after looking at what it would take — I understand if the political will and the money wasn’t there to transfer this goal into a reality.
Your rant (and it was a rant) was just spiteful. Peter Freyne would be proud but, as a loyal reader of your good work in the past, I am not.
He lost credibility when the news about the “deal” he made with his neighbor came out. Anyone else who had done that would be facing Elder Abuse charges. He hopes by changing his mind now that he can save his office, I pray that the Vermont Legislature, when they have to vote for a Governor remembers this as well. I hope they do the right thing and give us a Governor far more “credible” then the one we have now.