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.
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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.
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.
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.
Cant wait to see if any campaign contributions roll in from the insurancezilla from him retreating on this.
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.
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.
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.
This venture into leftist La la land was a good exercise, hopefully future elitists will examine it with care.
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.
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.
Sorry Paul, but I could not disagree more with your opinion. I’m a supporter of single-payer; always have been. I’m also pragmatic. Gov. Shumlin said from the beginning that if the numbers didn’t work then he could not, in good conscience, move forward.
Do you really think he wanted to hold this presser today? There was no upside to doing so. He could have played it safe and held this presser after the legislative vote in a couple of weeks, but he didn’t. It took tremendous courage and leadership to pull back on his signature initiative, once he was convinced that the numbers didn’t work.
The primary difference between this governor and his predecessor is that Shumlin actually tried to do something regarding healthcare; renewables, VY and other big issues. He’s no ribbon cutter; he’s a guy who actually tries to do something, which is why some don’t like him.
I’d much prefer one who leads verses one who does not.
I couldn’t agree more Paul. The sad part is that if Shumlin had issued his plan in 2013 as required by law, I think Shumlin could have made the same decision then. All Vermonters have been left in the dark about the future of their health care. Vermont businesses and potential businesses have been budget for future health care costs these extra two years. Not a good way to keep existing businesses here and attract new businesses to the state. In my opinion, breaking the law, a law he signed, in no way can be called leadership.
It didn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure out that it would be difficult, nay impossible, to fund single payer in VT. VT has 1) a shrinking labor force therefore less income tax dollars; 2) lost higher paying jobs; 3) is facing increasing education taxes; and 4) is facing ~$100 million dollar deficit. I find it amazing that it took Shummy this long to recognize the issue.
‘Do you want to take on the big challenges?’ Well Shummy, most who take on these issues have a pretty good idea about how to tackle them and don’t leave the big parts of the solution out. If you want a BMW you don’t sign off at the dealer and then go and buy lottery tickets in hopes of winning to pay for the car.
Neither this article or the companion article discuss the real driver of this capitulation. Only when a dedicated journalist & contributor to Breitbart News- Michael Patrick Leahy- confronted Vermonters with the real questions about Jonathan Gruber’s questionable modeling outcomes & Governor Shumlin’s agenda- driven decision making processes did this plan fall apart. And this clearly isn’t even close to over. Questions about Gruber remain to be answered at the Congressional level. Peter Shumlin has certainly lost credibility with his Progressive base. The real loss of credibility is to the Media & Press in Vermont, who looked the other way & carried Shumlin’s water for two years while he ignored state law by withholding the results of the UMass study while trying to cobble together a workable plan, wasting millions of dollars in the process. Even the venerable Seven Days carries a mea culpa in this, but We the People haven’t heard “We’re sorry” yet, even though Seven Days seems happy now to finally throw Gov Shumlin under the bus.
It’s too bad the VT press corps didn’t grow a pair before the election. If we had a Few Good Men (or Women) we would have heard that single pay was unfundable months ago. I can see the news conference now:
Heintz: Is this funny sir? Do you think higher taxes are funny?
Shummy: No, it isn’t. It’s tragic.
Heintz: Do you have an answer to the question, Governor? How will you fund single payer?
Shummy: Absolutely. My answer is I don’t have the first damn clue.
Shummy: I’ll answer the question! You want answers?
Heintz: I think I’m entitled to and so are the people of VT.
Shummy: YOU WANT ANSWERS!?
Heintz: I WANT THE TRUTH!
Shummy: YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!
The State of VT has a resource problem, that manifests itself as healthcare, education , infrastructure. There aren’t enough people and high paying jobs to support every initiative. The State would need to get to 1.2 – 1.5 mm people before you could make universal healthcare work. 5 % of Vermonters consume 45 % of the healthcare spending. We are the second healthiest state in the Country. Levying more taxes on businesses and residents is not the way to go. We live in a global economy. The math simply does not work. We need to encourage more Business in this state as well as curb the costs of education.
The “Graying” of VT is the biggest issue this state will face. We need more opportunity for young people to stay in this state.
I enjoy living in VT. I am not so sure I would like living in VT if it cost me another 5-6k a year.
These problems are very easy to solve if you are willing to do the math!!
When it was no longer politically advantageous to continue pursuing single-payer, Shumlin pulled the plug. He’s a pragmatist who knew it would be better to take a beating now than commit political suicide after pushing forward a plan that was DOA, especially since he’s still dependent on the legislature to ratify his win in the November election. After all, Shumlin’s a politician and his first priority is always staying in office. I don’t think it was a courageous or a cowardly decision to pull the plug on single payer at this time. It was the ONLY decision he could make and still recover reasonably well.
In the speech that Gov. Shumlin gave on Weds. when he pulled the plug on single payer, he referenced that Act 48 mandated an 80% actuarial value plan. They did some calculations at that benefit level and determined it would still cost many lower-income Vermonters too much out of pocket to pick up the remaining 20% of their health care costs. Additionally, Shumlin said that he learned a relatively high percentage of Vermonters currently enjoy “high-value” insurance plans and that an 80% plan would be unacceptable to many. Some of the individuals who hold these high-value (94% actuarial value) insurance plans include State employees, unionized teachers, and ERISA employees to name a few. And many of these individuals make pretty good money.
It sounds to me like one of the reasons for pulling the plug may have been to avoid having a truly difficult discussion with these groups of people who would face paying the highest income tax (9.5%) while having the quality and coverage of their insurance plan significantly degraded. Not to mention the fact that the teachers union, to-date, has been a supporter of Shumlin. I think since he was recently humbled in November and appears weaker as Governor, Shumlin may not have wanted to bite the hand that feeds him quite so hard, especially given the priority and weight of education funding/property tax reform this legislative session. There’s another area where teachers potentially stand to lose.
On top of it all, Shumlin’s 2 years late presenting any single-payer financing information and he’s kept the legislature and the populace in the dark about the financing plan. Plus, with the fallout from Jonathan Gruber’s statements and opaque billing practices, along with general distrust stemming from how the state has managed VT Health Connect, there seems to be little faith that the Governor is really looking out for anyone’s best interest except his own. Nobody really believes that his administration can effectively and fairly administer such an ambitious program either. I think single payer was DOA anyway but these gaffes, missteps, and overall “executive privilege” around our healthcare reforms totally sealed the deal. Lots of people are upset with the Governor right now but, to be frank, I’m sure Shumlin would rather have poor Vermonters and Progressive advocates upset with him than to have the majority of the business community and the wealthier residents who already pay most of the taxes upset with him. There’s still a chance for Shumlin to show he’s still got the chops when education funding/property tax reform comes up this session.
My accountant told me LAST MARCH that the cost of single payer would be a 10% employer payroll tax, plus the income tax. The Vermont Society of CPAs knew LAST MARCH.
How long do you plan to let this story simmer at the top of Off Message? It’s now Dec 23!