Democrats are now almost universally embracing the idea of single payer health care. Thanks Trump!

Courtesy of WaPo:

Today, the Center for American Progress released a single-payer health plan (or thereabouts), planting a significant marker in the evolution of the Democratic Party, and eventually perhaps the American health-care system. 

And we have President Trump and the Republicans to thank for it. 

CAP calls its plan “Medicare Extra For All.” That’s a little unwieldy but seems meant to distinguish it from “Medicare For All,” which is what Bernie Sanders called the plan he proposed in 2016 and what others have called for. It isn’t a true single-payer plan because it envisions a continued role for private insurance. But it greatly expands government coverage, both for anyone who doesn’t have insurance and, critically, anyone who simply would prefer the government’s plan.

It’s significant that this plan is coming from the heart of the Democratic establishment, a think tank that is the closest thing to a Democratic government-in-exile. When it has officially put its imprimatur on a sort-of single-payer health plan, that means the general principle is now all but consensus among Democrats, something that wasn’t true even a year ago. 

While this evolution has been in-process for a while, the fact is that as of now, the Democratic Party is converging on consensus around the goal of universal coverage with a much stronger role for government. You may recall that in the last presidential election, the party’s candidate wasn’t willing to go that far. Today, nearly every Democrat considering a run for the White House in 2020 has endorsed the idea of universal coverage.

Wouldn't it be a kick in the ass if we ended up with an assault gun ban, universal health care, and a Democratic majority in the House and Senate, not BECAUSE of Donald Trump, but in spite of him?

Could happen. 

That could make him both the worst president in history, but with one of the most consequential presidencies.

Isn't politics weird sometimes?

Executive director of California health insurance firm says that Donald Trump has created a "shit storm" for 2018.

Courtesy of HuffPo:

Peter Lee, Covered California's executive director, told Business Insider in an interview that the Trump administration has thrown a wrench into insurance exchanges under the Affordable Care Act that were on their way to stabilizing themselves in 2017. Lee even agreed with Trump's assessment that Obamacare is "gone" — but perhaps for a different reason than Trump intended. 

"So I think there is a truth to it — Obamacare is gone," Lee said. "The reality is what is going to come home to roost for this president and this Congress is a collapsed individual market that was working well." 

Lee said research from the Kaiser Family Foundation and Standard and Poor's pointed to increased insurer profitability and strong enrollment numbers. Now, that appears to be up in the air heading into the 2018 open-enrollment period. 

"If you look at all of this research, 2017 was going to be the big turnaround year and now 2018 is going to be a s---storm," Lee said. "It is going to be a nightmare for much of country with some islands of calm, relatively speaking."

California was one of Obamacare's biggest success stories.

And now thanks to Donald Trump it may end up another smoking crater.

Which I imagine means that their proposed plan to move to a single payer health care system may now be their next go to solution.

If we know anything about California, it is as that they are often the ones who create a path for the rest of the country to follow.

Senator Elizabeth Warren holds health insurance executive's feet to the fire, while also making argument for single payer.

This from the You Tube site: 

Elizabeth Warren is shocked to find out that the health insurance giant, Anthem, gets roughly half their quarterly earnings from the federal government, and still has the audacity to pull out of the Affordable Care Act marketplace--thus sowing more instability for millions of the poorest Americans--because their demands aren't being met. 

I have to say that if I were somebody involved in some shady shit and I knew I was about to be grilled by Elizabeth Warren I would be pooping my pants.

She is unbelievably good at this stuff and simply does not tolerate bullshit.

And she is right, this kid of greed in the health insurance market is exactly why we need to seriously consider moving to a single payer, government controlled, health care system.

(H/T to Democratic Underground.)

The GOP's plan to repeal Obamacare just went into a ditch. Or careened off a cliff. Kinda depends on who you ask.

WATCH: Senate Dems hold "People's Filibuster" against ObamaCare repeal pic.twitter.com/mGkyRvBwFQ

— The Hill (@thehill) June 27, 2017

Courtesy of CNN Politics:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will delay the vote on the Republican leadership's health care bill until after the July 4 recess. 

McConnell told GOP senators that he wants to make changes to the bill, get a new Congressional Budget Office score and have a vote after the holiday, two sources told CNN. 

McConnell said that President Donald Trump had invited all Republican senators to the White House on Tuesday afternoon. 

"We're going to continue discussion in our conference," McConnell told reporters on Capitol Hill after his meeting with his caucus.

The republicans are insisting that this does not mean the bill is dead, but can you imagine what these Senators will face back home during this break?

Most will likely hide in their houses or state offices at avoid the angry crowds gathered outside, and those that are brave enough to hold a town hall will spend the entire time pressed up against the wall attempting to inch toward the exit.

There is NO WAY they come back from that anxious to pass a health care bill.

Alaska's Lisa Murkowski is clearly a no vote on anything that the Republicans could come up with.

GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski: “People support greater access to health care. Planned Parenthood provides for that.” https://t.co/XLEolQj5AG

— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) June 27, 2017

And even Mitch McConnell has signaled that it might be time to bring in the "A" Team.

You know, the Democrats:  

Mitch McConnell is delivering an urgent warning to staffers, Republican senators and even the president himself: 

If Obamacare repeal fails this week, the GOP will lose all leverage and be forced to work with Chuck Schumer.

Those ought to be some fun negotiations, especially since Elizabeth Warren has now stated categorically that it is time for Democrats to push for single payer.

Warren: The Next Step For Dems Is Single-Payer Health Care https://t.co/syfo9PhUNV via @TPM

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) June 27, 2017

As we have already reported Americans are supporting the idea of single payer now more than ever, which might give Democrats a little more leverage than in times past.

I think the most important thing that Democrats can do in the interim is to make the Republicans solely responsible for every problem that crops up in health care until new legislation gets passed, and that includes higher rates, loss of coverage, and fewer available options.

If I were a Democratic Senator or Congressperson I would have a bumper sticker on my car that read "We can permanently fix health care in America, ask us how."

Support surges for single payer health care.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

Single-payer healthcare is growingly increasingly popular in the United States, according to a Pew Research Center poll released Friday. 

33 percent of poll respondents said they favor a single-payer system, in which the government covers medical expenses with tax money, over the current system based on private insurance companies. 

That's an increase of five percentage points since January, and twelve points since single payer was polled in December 2015. 

60 percent of Americans who were surveyed said the federal government is responsible for providing healthcare coverage to all Americans, compared to 39 percent who said it was not the government’s job. 

The poll comes a day after Senate Republicans unveiled the first draft of their plan to repeal ObamaCare.

Like I have said before the Republicans may actually be inadvertently pushing this country toward single payer, and clearly the American people are ready for it.

Just the other day Rand Paul said, and I quote, "What I'd like to do is legalize inexpensive insurance, and you should be able to get insurance for $1 a day. I mean, you really should."

Well I have news for Mr. I Have a Squirrel Toupee, thirty dollar a month for insurance premiums would only be possible through a single payer system that every single American had signed onto. 

And the best way to do that is through a government program like Medicaid or Medicare.

So essentially the Republicans want single payer health care as well, they are just too stupid to realize it.

Republicans may inadvertently be paving the way for single payer health care.

Courtesy of Vox:  

On Friday, McConnell reportedly “delivered a private warning to his Senate Republicans: If they failed to pass legislation unwinding the Affordable Care Act, Democrats could regain power and establish a single-payer health-care system.” 

History may record a certain irony if this is the argument McConnell uses to successfully destroy Obamacare. In recent conversations with Democrats and industry observers, I’ve become convinced that just the opposite is true: If Republicans unwind Obamacare and pass their bill, then Democrats are much likelier to establish a single-payer health care system — or at least the beginnings of one — when they regain power. 

“I will tell you,” says Len Nichols, director of the Center for Health Policy Research and Ethics at George Mason University, “Democratic politicians I never thought would utter the words have mentioned single-payer to me in a non-joking way of late.” 

If Republicans wipe out the Affordable Care Act and de-insure tens of millions of people, they will prove a few things to Democrats. First, including private insurers and conservative ideas in a health reform plan doesn’t offer a scintilla of political protection, much less Republican support. Second, sweeping health reform can be passed quickly, with only 51 votes in the Senate, and with no support from major industry actors. Third, it’s easier to defend popular government programs that people already understand and appreciate, like Medicaid and Medicare, than to defend complex public-private partnerships, like Obamacare’s exchanges.

Even worse for the Republicans would be if they successfully pass Trumpcare, which even Donald Trump seems to want to abandon, since it will likely cause even more Americans to lose their health care, or be forced into substandard policies, and that outcome will be traced directly back to the GOP with no chance remaining to blame Obama.

Ultimately all of this might be exactly the shot in the arm that Democrats need to put forward a policy that actually covers ALL Americans and which leaves the health insurance companies right where they belong, on the ash heap of history.

I think all of this is more than just possible, I think it is quite probable.

Study finds that single payer health care system could save Californians 37.5 billion annually.

Courtesy of Mercury News:  

As the California Senate considers voting this week on a proposal to replace private health insurance with a statewide health plan that covers everyone, the bill’s main backers on Wednesday heralded a new study that says the plan could save Californians $37.5 billion annually in health care spending — even after adding the state’s nearly 3 million uninsured. 

The favorable findings by economists at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, comes a week after a Senate committee released eye-popping estimates that threatened to dampen enthusiasm for the bill. The committee’s analysis projected that the statewide plan would cost $400 billion annually, half of which would likely need to come from workers and businesses through a 15 percent payroll tax.

If the state adopts a single-payer plan, “Californians will get more and will definitely pay less,” Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, the co-author of Senate Bill 562, said at a news conference Wednesday.

If California passes this bill, and it is even half as successful as predicted, the argument against a nation wide single payer system will become even harder to make.

(I wrote this post yesterday, but since then the vote has taken place and the bill has passed.)

Bill Maher once said "As goes California, so goes the rest of the country."

And that is typically correct, though it does take some portions of the country decades to catch up.

In other news it appears that the GOP health care plan has virtually NO support.

Courtesy of CNN Money:

Americans are not too enamored with the House GOP bill to repeal Obamacare. 

Only 8% think the Senate should pass the legislation as is, according to a new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation. 

About half of respondents think the upper chamber should make either "major" or "minor" changes to it, while 29% say the Senate should not pass the bill.

Can you say "dead in the water?"

Let's face it Americans have seen the future and it is government run single payer health care for all.

Donald Trump congratulates Australian Prime Minister on their superior single payer health care system on day that Republicans vote to repeal Obamacare.

Courtesy of Buzzfeed: 

While answering questions about the House of Representatives' vote to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act Thursday, Trump said Australia's health care system was better than the one in the US.

"Deductibles are going to come down. It's going to be fantastic health care," Trump said of the Republican-backed American Health Care Act. "Right now Obamacare is failing." 

"I shouldn't say this to our great gentleman and my friend from Australia, because you have better health care than we do," Trump continued. "We're going to have great health care very soon."

Actually no we won't, as explained by Sherrod Brown in multiple tweets listing the  preexisting conditions that will cause your health care costs to go through the roof under Trumpcare.

However if Trump and his Republican sycophants want to discuss the possibility of a single payer heath care system I think they will find plenty of eager Democrats willing to work that out with them.

After all even Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer believes that will be where all of this ends up: 

"We had seven years of ObamaCare, a change in expectations, and I would predict in less than seven years we'll be in a single-payer system." 

Considering how freaked out the Republicans were about Obamacare, can you even begin to imagine how hysterical they will be when the country forces them to vote on a single payer system?

In the wake of Trump's vow to repeal Obamacare, California flirts with single payer system.

Courtesy of LA Times:

With President Trump now vowing to put forward a replacement for the Affordable Care Act in March, some California politicians and healthcare advocates are once again promoting the idea of a state-run “single-payer” system that operates like Medicare. 

Backers say the uncertainty surrounding Trump’s promise to repeal Obamacare presents California with a chance to rethink how healthcare is delivered to its 39 million residents. 

“Why wouldn’t we take this as an opportunity to create what we want in California?” Dr. Mitch Katz, head of L.A. County’s health department, said at a conference in December. He mentioned a single-payer system as a possible solution. 

Other suggestions for how California can capitalize on the threat to Obamacare include creating a public option, a state-run health plan to sell on the state’s insurance exchange, and mimicking how Massachusetts provided universal healthcare.

And it is not as if California does not have reason for concern.
Courtesy of Vox: 

Republican replacement plans for Obamacare would lead to significant declines in the number of Americans with health insurance coverage, according to an analysis presented Saturday at the National Governors Association and obtained by Vox.The analysis includes graphs on what the Republican plan to overhaul Obamacare’s tax credits, generally making them less generous, would do. They are based on the recent 19-page proposal that Republican leadership released about their plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. 

The report estimates what would happen in a hypothetical state with 300,000 people in the individual market that has also expanded Medicaid. In the individual market, enrollment would fall 30 percent and 90,000 people would become uninsured.

California has almost 39 million people, that means multiple millions would potentially lose their coverage.

By the way yesterday Trump said that "Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated."

TRUMP: “Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.” https://t.co/LFr422VHbq

— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) February 27, 2017

Actually EVERYBODY knew. Except Donald Trump apparently.

And if he listened to those who knew this (The Democrats.) he might understand that the best thing he could do would be to leave the Affordable Care Act in place and work to improve it.

More than 2,000 American doctors are now calling for a single payer health care system.

Courtesy of the Guardian:

A group of more than 2,000 physicians is calling for the establishment of a universal government-run health system in the US, in a paper in the American Journal of Public Health. 

According to the proposal released Thursday, the Affordable Care Act did not go far enough in removing barriers to healthcare access. The physicians’ bold plan calls for implementing a single-payer system similar to Canada’s, called the National Health Program, that would guarantee all residents healthcare. 

The new single-payer system would be funded mostly by existing US government funding. The physicians point out that the US government already pays for two-thirds of all healthcare spending in the US, and a single-payer system would cut down on administrative costs, so a transition to a single-payer system would not require significant additional spending. 

“Our patients can’t afford care and don’t have access to the care they need, while the system is ever more wasteful, throwing away money on bureaucratic expenses and absurd prices from the drug companies,” said David Himmelstein, a professor in the CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College and lecturer on medicine at Harvard Medical School.

I have always felt, no not felt KNOWN, that the ACA was only a stepping stone toward an eventual single payer health care system in this country. 

And what's more the Republicans recognize that as well, which is why they are always talking about ripping it up and starting from scratch. And it is also why back in 2012 the insurance companies spent over 100 million dollars fighting against it privately while publicly seeming to support it.

This is also why it is so very important to get Hillary Clinton elected President.

She knows EXACTLY what President Obama's long term plan was for health care in this country, and she knows how to continue moving it forward. Don't forget this was what she wanted to do way back in 1993.

It is also why Bernie Sanders needs to shut the fuck up about it.

He comes stumbling in from the outside shouting about universal health care, without realizing that by promising to start from scratch he is threatening to undo all of the progress made toward that goal already.

Remember President Obama is playing three dimensional chess while the Republicans are playing checkers.

Apparently Bernie Sanders is playing Connect Four.

Hillary Clinton says that single payer health care will "never, ever come to pass."

Courtesy of CBS News: 

Just a few days before the Iowa caucuses, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton stressed to voters in Des Moines just how unfeasible she considers her opponent Bernie Sanders' plan to pursue a single-payer health care system. 

"I want you to understand why I am fighting so hard for the Affordable Care Act," she said at Grand View University after hearing from a woman who spoke about her daughter receiving cancer treatment thanks to the health care law. "I don't want it repealed, I don't want us to be thrown back into a terrible, terrible national debate. I don't want us to end up in gridlock. People can't wait!" 

She added, "People who have health emergencies can't wait for us to have a theoretical debate about some better idea that will never, ever come to pass."

You ever take a shot to the solar plexus, which knocks all of the air out of your lungs and makes it hard to take a breath?

Yeah, well that is how I reacted to hearing this.

I pride myself on being somewhat of a pragmatist these days, but I am sometimes a starry eyed pragmatist and I have long hoped that we were indeed moving toward a single payer system in this country.

If that dream is indeed dead, and Hillary Clinton SHOULD the person who would know best about that, then I am going to need a couple of days to mourn that loss.

What do you guys think?

Is it possible that Obamacare, with several more tweaks down the line, really the best we can hope for?

What most Bernie Sanders supporters seem to miss. His uber progressive policies would be dead on arrival in Washington.

Courtesy of the Washington Post:  

In other words, Clinton is the candidate who is more realistic about what can be accomplished in today's divided political landscape. Sanders is aiming for more progressive ideas that would be much tougher to pass and implement -- if not downright impossible, such as single-payer health care. 

If you're a Democratic primary voter, Sanders's candidacy is arguably more exciting. And the issue of health care is no exception. While Obamacare has a 67 percent approval rating among Democrats, December polling from the the Kaiser Family Foundation shows 76 percent of Democrats strongly or somewhat favor the general idea of universal health care. 

But that -- and the majority of policies that form the center of Sanders's platform -- have almost no chance getting through Congress in the near future. Which party controls the Senate could change in November, but come Inauguration Day 2017, the House will almost certainly will be under Republican control. 

That would make it nearly impossible for a President Sanders to switch the nation's health-care system into a government-controlled one that is anathema to Republicans' free-market views. With Democrats in charge of the House and the Senate in 2009 and 2010, Obama and his allies fought tooth and nail to pass his reforms to the private health-care system. As Clinton pointed out Sunday, a proposal to move to the kind of single-payer system Sanders favors was so politically divisive, it didn't even come up for a vote. 

The question we keep asking ourselves is: Do Sanders supporters care that their guy's ideas would be dead on arrival in a Republican Congress? As he inches closer and closer to Clinton in both national and early-state polling, you could reasonably argue that they don't.

Don't forget that Sanders does NOT have the kind of national clout to bring along Democratic candidates on his coattails so it is unlikely that the make up of the Senate or House would change much from what it is today, even in 2018.

The same cannot be said about the Clintons.

Also keep in mind that President Obama, arguably one of the most intelligent men to  occupy the White House, took stock of the situation and realized early on that single payer health care was not doable, so he did the next best thing.

Hillary has a similarly pragmatic approach and she will strengthen and improve the Affordable Care Act rather than attempt to do the impossible.

Many other of Bernie's policy ideas are also certain to bring the Republicans together in opposition, backed by billions of dollars courtesy of big business, and they will also likely die on the vine and never even make it onto the floor of the Senate or the House.

THAT is why I am supporting her. And why I think she is our ONLY choice in 2016.

Robert Reich presents "The Medicare Solution." Man do I like this!

This, of course, is what most of us liberals were hoping for when Obama first took on the health care crisis. 

However due to incredible blow back from the Republicans, trust issues among many Americans, and lobbying by health insurance companies, all the President could deliver was the Affordable Care Act.  Which has some very good qualities, but is nowhere near the fix that we really need in this country.

But Medicare for all? Now THAT is change we can believe in.

Toronto physician schools arrogant U.S. Senator concerning the truth about Canada's health care system.

This took place Tuesday during a Senate hearing on single payer healthcare. Here is the pertinent exchange courtesy of the Chicago Tribune:

North Carolina Senator Richard Burr

BURR: Why are doctors exiting the public system in Canada? 

MARTIN: Thank you for your question, Senator. If I didn’t express myself in a way to make myself understood, I apologize. There are no doctors exiting the public system in Canada, and in fact we see a net influx of physicians from the United States into the Canadian system over the last number of years. 

What I did say was that the solution to the wait time challenge that we have in Canada -- we do have a difficult time with waits for elective medical procedures -- does not lie in moving away from our single-payer system toward a multipayer system. And that’s borne out by the experience of Australia. So Australia used to have a single-tier system and did in the 1990s move toward a multiple-payer system where private insurance was permitted. And a very well-known study by Duckett, et al., tracked what took place in terms of wait times in Australia as the multipayer system was put in place. 

And what they found was in those areas of Australia where private insurance was being taken up and utilized, waits in the public system became longer. 

BURR: What do you say to an elected official who goes to Florida and not the Canadian system to have a heart valve replacement? (This reference is to Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams, whose decision to have a heart valve procedure in Miami, near where he owns a condo, rather than Canada, is widely viewed in Canada as a rich man's failure to investigate the care available to him closer to home.) 

MARTIN: It’s actually interesting, because in fact the people who are the pioneers of that particular surgery, which Premier Williams had, and have the best health outcomes in the world for that surgery, are in Toronto, at the Peter Munk Cardiac Center, just down the street from where I work. 

So what I say is that sometimes people have a perception, and I believe that actually this is fueled in part by media discourse, that going to where you pay more for something, that that necessarily makes it better, but it’s not actually borne out by the evidence on outcomes from that cardiac surgery or any other. 

(The ultimate zinger came at the end of the exchange, when Burr thought he had Martin down for the count about wait times in Canada, and she neatly put the difference between the Canadian and U.S. systems in perspective.) 

BURR: On average, how many Canadian patients on a waiting list die each year? Do you know? 

MARTIN: I don’t, sir, but I know that there are 45,000 in America who die waiting because they don’t have insurance at all. 

Ouch! That's going to leave a mark. 

I have to admit that I, like many Americans, believed the propaganda that America has the best health care system in the world. It was only after the whole health care debate started that I learned what a pile of steaming excrement that is. (In fact I should thank IM's Canadian visitors who quickly straightened my ass out about the price of care, the actual wait times, and the lies about their citizens coming here to meet their health care needs.

Now after reading this I am kind of on the side of the Teabaggers in that I want ACA repealed as well. Only I want it replaced with a single payer system, so that America can finally have the health care system it deserves.

CBO issues list of provisions for lowering the deficit. A big one is to offer a public option for health care.

Courtesy of FDL:  

The CBO found that a public option based on Medicare would reduce the deficit by $158 billion through reduced spending and increased revenue. 

The reason a public option would be so effective at reducing the deficit is that it would significantly lower premiums for millions of regular Americans and businesses. This would, in turn, reduce the amount of subsidies the government would need to spend to make insurance “affordable.” From the CBO: 

"In the Congressional Budget Office’s estimation, premiums for the public plan would be between 7 percent and 8 percent lower, on average, during the 2016–2023 period than premiums for private plans offered in the exchanges—mainly because the public plan’s payment rates for providers would generally be lower than those of private plans. In addition, the public plan would be likely to have lower administrative costs than private plans. However, CBO expects that the public plan would be less inclined than private plans to use benefit management techniques (such as narrow provider networks, utilization review, and prior-approval requirements) to control spending. [...] 

One rationale for adding a public plan to the exchanges is that it would help reduce premiums for some individuals, families, and employers who would buy insurance through the exchanges but would not qualify for subsidies. Premiums would be reduced both because the public plan would be one of the lowest-cost plans available in many areas and because adding a low-cost option would increase the competitive pressure on private plans,leading them to decrease their premiums." 

A public option would inherently make insurance cheaper for people, and the government could use the deficit reductions to pay for increased exchange subsidies which would bring down what regular people need to pay even further.

I think with the recent debacle demonstrated by the problems with the website and the fact that the insurance companies clearly stabbed the President in the back, indicates that the government needs to take some drastic measures to draw a line in the sand and offer an affordable health care plan that would force the insurance companies to stop playing games and start competing on a more level playing field.

Of course this is EXACTLY what the Right Wing has feared all along. Which of course only makes it that much better of an idea.

Besides aren't THEY the ones always complaining about the deficit?

While the Republicans do everything they can to sabotage the rollout of Obamacare, Vermont is quietly constructing the nation's first government funded universal health care system.

Courtesy of the Providence Journal:  

As states open insurance marketplaces amid uncertainty about whether they are a solution for health care, Vermont is eyeing a bigger goal, one that more fully embraces a government-funded model. 

The state has a planned 2017 launch of the nation’s first universal health care system, a sort of modified Medicare-for-all that has long been a dream for many liberals. 

The plan is especially ambitious in the current atmosphere surrounding health care in the United States. Republicans in Congress balk at the federal health overhaul years after it was signed into law. States are still negotiating their terms for implementing it. And some major employers have begun to drastically limit their offerings of employee health insurance, raising questions about the future of the industry altogether. 

In such a setting, Vermont’s plan looks more and more like an anomaly. It combines universal coverage with new cost controls in an effort to move away from a system in which the more procedures doctors and hospitals perform, the more they get paid, to one in which providers have a set budget to care for a set number of patients. 

The result will be health care that’s “a right and not a privilege,” Gov. Peter Shumlin said.

I truly think that this is the future of health care in this country, and once Vermont demonstrates how workable and superior the model is there will be vast pressure placed on other states, and the federal government, to follow suit. 

Man this is definitely going to make some Right Wing heads explode!