Yearly Archives: 2016

Another nail in Vermont Health Connect’s coffin

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The vultures are circling. The wolves are howling. The diminished corpus of Vermont Health Connect is crawling across a pitiless landscape; every time an oasis appears, it turns out to be a mirage.

Things aren’t lookin’ good.

I’ve been a strong supporter of Governor Shumlin’s health care reform plan — hopefully as a first step toward single payer, or at least universal coverage of some kind. I have bought and consumed every confident reassurance ever issued by the Governor and his minions. I have, unfairly in retrospect, mocked his critics as mindless partisans. I have allowed my hope to be renewed by fresh reassurances, most recently last fall, when the administration announced that VHC had met its performance benchmarks.

Today, not so much. Today I’ve turned a corner. I remain hopeful, but the confidence is gone.

The last straw was yesterday’s article by VTDigger’s Erin Mansfield, which began like this:

An independent expert on health care strategy advised the state to spend as little money as possible on Vermont Health Connect technology in the immediate future and instead use resources to evaluate alternatives to the exchange.

Frank Petrus, a senior managing partner at Connecticut-based Gartner Inc., told lawmakers the state should stop spending money to build new Vermont Health Connect technology, try to leverage investments it has already made, and commission a study that would take three to four months.

Basically, he wants to put VHC into hospice care. Stop trying to fix it, just help it “limp along a little while longer.”

Ugh. Yeesh. Aaaaaarrrrrgh.

This isn’t coming from a free-market ideologue, but a guy with unimpeachable bona fides:

Gartner has consulted for several state health exchanges, including Vermont Health Connect, and has a great deal of experience in public sector human services.

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A bit of an own goal by the Minter campaign

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“So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”

— Revelation 3:16

One of the minor sidelights of our state campaign season is the issue of endorsements, especially on the Democratic side. Do you support the hometown favorite, or the party stalwart? The one who wants to be the 44th male president, or the one who wants to be the first female?

You can sense the pressure in the way things filter out. Established officeholders who don’t have to face the electorate? Peter Shumlin and Pat Leahy go for Hillary Clinton. Officeholder who will be on the ballot this year? Peter Welch is studiously neutral.

Non-officeholders contending for top Democratic nominations? Matt Dunne, Dave Zuckerman, and Kesha Ram have all endorsed Bernie.*

*As a correspondent informed me, I made a quick-draw mistake there. Zuckerman and Ram are officeholders, of course. I wrote in haste, and I apologize to Zuckerman and Ram for the attempted impeachments.

And then there’s Sue Minter, who hadn’t said anything publicly about the race until this week, when she half-heartedly indicated a preference in an interview with WCAX’s Kyle Midura. It wasn’t pretty.

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The Kasich Files: a scandal-ridden, failing education system

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Another installment examining John Kasich’s woeful record as Ohio Governor, in advance of the “reasonable” candidate’s appearance in Colchester on Saturday. 

Previously in this space, I wrote about the disgrace of John Kasich’s push for school choice in Ohio. Last summer, the state official in charge of school choice was forced to resign after submitting fraudulent statistics to the federal government — statistics designed to conceal the fact that charter schools weren’t working. The disgraced official “admitted scrubbing data on failing… charters to improve their standing.”

Bow Down Before Your Benevolent Overlord!

Bow Down Before Your Benevolent Overlord!

(By the way, the wife of that disgraced former official? She used to be Kasich’s chief of staff, and is now a top staffer in his presidential campaign.)

Well, there’s more bad news on Kasich’s sorry education record, courtesy of a Washington Post article entitled

The Education Mess in Ohio Under Gov. John Kasich

The Post ticks off a lengthy list of failures and cover-ups, including:

*a scandal-ridden charter school sector

*budget cuts for traditional public schools at the same time as increased funding for  charter schools and school vouchers

*controversial state takeovers of “failing” schools

*a questionable teacher evaluation system that uses as one factor the standardized test scores of students, against the recommendation of assessment experts

*the botched administration of the Common Core test known as PARCC (which the state later dropped).

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The Kasich Files: rabidly anti-choice

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Now that John Kasich is planning a Town Hall in Vermont, I’ll be exploring his extremely conservative, and not very successful, record as Governor of Ohio. Enjoy.

Best of times, worst of times for Vermont Republicans. The good: they’ve finally got a credible, plausibly centrist candidate for governor — one who, in the mold of Jim Douglas, can put a smiley face on biz-friendly conservatism.

The bad: Oh, those presidential candidates.

Many in the VTGOP, glumly scanning the field, are latching onto Ohio Gov. John Kasich as the alleged “adult in the room,” the technocrat, the non-ideologue. I suppose we’ll see plenty of Vermont stalwarts at Kasich’s town hall on Saturday.

But to see John Kasich as anything other than a cookie-cutter conservative firebrand force-feeding the ALEC agenda to his home state, takes quite a bit of squinting. And wishful thinking.

Previously, I wrote about his fraudulent (literally) school-choice push, woeful jobs record, and how he has put the squeeze on local governments to save his state-budget bacon. Today, hey, it’s Planned Parenthood.

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The easiest political question of the day

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Huh. Aki Soga has a new job title.

The former editorial writer for the Burington Free Press, and pretty much the Last Man Standing after a series of newsroom purges, is apparently now the Free Press Reader Engagement Editor.

Hock. Choke. Cough. [drinks glass of water]

Sorry, I always puke in my mouth a little when I see one of these new-agey media job titles.

Anyway, Mr. Soga posted a piece this afternoon, posing the musical question…

Is Vermont John Kasich’s Super Tuesday firewall? 

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA No.

I suppose I should explain a bit.

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With friends like these, who needs EMILY’s?

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The Sue Minter campaign is hoping to win the support of EMILY’s List, the high-powered PAC for liberal women. Minter recently replaced her in-state campaign manager, Sarah McCall, with Molly Ritner, an outsider reportedly handpicked by the EMILY’s folks. When asked if an EMILY’s endorsement is in the works, Ritner replied cryptically, “They are actively engaged.”

EMILY’s support would be a Big Biden Deal for Minter. It’d go a long way toward overcoming Matt Dunne’s early lead in fundraising. But while she has yet to receive EMILY’s imprimatur, she has managed to gain the support of “Maria’s List,” a Massachusetts-based EMILY’s wannabe.

Maria’s List has scheduled a fundraising event for Feb. 29 at the Boston-area home of its founder, Maria Jobin-Leeds. That’s the good news; the bad news is the invitation letter for that event may be the most ineptly-drafted piece of political mail I have ever seen. It’s full of typos, bad grammar, and factual errors. Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

When asked about Maria’s List, Ritner offered this noncommittal reply by email:

As you might know, Maria’s List is an organization that supports “progressive candidates who stand by their values and who run viable campaigns.”  They have decided to support Sue in her campaign and are hosting an event on her behalf.

As for the email specifically, the content was not approved by the campaign.

Well, that’s good. Because the content is awful. The letter in full, after the jump.

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Worst… Conspiracy… EVER

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When I defended the Democrats for saving “superdelegate” seats for key officials, I expected to get blowback from Bernie supporters. And I did. And that’s fine. But I think something needs to be said in response.

The tenor of the blowback is basically that the Democrats are rigging the game for Hillary Clinton.

Well, if this is true, then it’s a woefully inept conspiracy.

Quiet! DNC At Work!

Quiet! DNC At Work!

The Democrats have set aside 15 percent of their delegate slots for officeholders and party leaders. These people can cast their convention votes as they see fit. Those who get superdelegate spots are not chosen for their loyalty to a particular candidate. If they were, then Sanders supporter Rich Cassidy wouldn’t have a superdelegate slot from Vermont. Hell, Bernie himself is a superdelegate — and he’s not even a Democrat.

And so far, less than half the superdelegates have endorsed Clinton.

And they are free to change their minds at any time.

That is one weak-ass conspiracy.

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The superdelegate schmozz

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Having proven its electoral mettle in the New Hampshire primary, the Bernie Sanders campaign is apparently now just realizing that the Democratic Party’s nominating process is not entirely, well, democratic. 

Of the nearly 4,500 delegates who will cast a vote at next July’s Democratic National Convention, an estimated 713 of them are so-called “superdelegates” — party muckety-mucks who can vote however they please.

And surprise, surprise: a lot of the muckety-mucks are backing Hillary Clinton. Resulting in this seeming contradiction:

Bernie Sanders lost by a hair in Iowa and won by a landslide in New Hampshire. Yet Hillary Clinton has amassed an enormous 350-delegate advantage over the Vermont senator after just two states.

That’s because more than half of the unelected superdelegates have endorsed Clinton — although they are under no legal obligation to vote for her at the convention.

All of which prompts outrage in the Sanders camp. Outrage you might expect me to share.

Well, sorry, but I don’t.

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Justice Scalia’s Chamber of White Privilege

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I suppose I have to begin with the usual respect-for-the-departed, Scalia-towering-intellect, beloved-by-all-despite-his-views stuff, because That’s What You Do when a prominent person dies.

That’s about as far as I’m willing to go, since Scalia wielded his influence as a weapon against many causes I hold dear. For me, praising his “towering intellect” is kind of like honoring the entrepreneurial spirit of Al Capone.

Besides, the exigencies of politesse didn’t prevent Republicans from pivoting immediately to the political; clearly, Ted Cruz and others got their research teams to work right away, preparing arguments for Saturday night’s Republican debate. So if they couldn’t be bothered to go beyond the formalities, neither will I.

On to business. Found something just so chock-full of unintentional irony that I couldn’t resist writing about it, even though it has nothing to do with Vermont politics. Apologies for straying; feel free to move on to the next post if you wish.

Scalia was found dead on Saturday morning at Cibolo Creek Ranch in rural Texas.

Roughin' it, rich white folks style.

Roughin’ it, rich white folks style.

And then on Sunday morning, the Austin American-Statesman runs a puff piece in its Travel section about that very ranch!

For those unfamiliar with the ways of the press, it’s common for newspapers to pre-publish and pre-distribute their non-news Sunday sections. But still: awkward!

But when I read the puff piece, I realized what a colossal slice of unintended irony it really was. And what an unintentionally appropriate place Cibolo Creek Ranch was for Justice Scalia to end his days.

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GlobalFoundries: Too big to fail?

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Chittenden County is blessed — and a little bit cursed — by the presence of a large high-tech employer: GlobalFoundries, formerly d.b.a. IBM. The Essex facility is a major driver of the area’s economy, and the entire state’s economy for that matter.

And GlobalFoundries knows this, and they seem to know they have us over a barrel.

This is my inference based on a new report by the Associated Press’ master gardener Dave Gram, who has used public-records requests to discover the extent of GF’s demands on the state.

We already knew about the questionable $1 million from the Enterprise Fund. Gram now brings us tidings of a $17 million highway project that GF wants fast-tracked. It would involve improvements on Route 22A, which happens to be the most direct route from the Burlington area to New York State. (22A goes straight through downtown Vergennes. Hope you like your new highway, Vergennians!)

But otherwise it’s of little utility to intra-state traffic. For general transportation, trade and tourism puposes, improvements to US-7 would be more efficacious. But I have a feeling that what GlobalFoundries wants, GlobalFoundries will get.

(Now, if GF can convince New York State to build a decent highway from the Vermont border west of Rutland to I-87, then that would be a great benefit to the western Vermont economy as a whole. If they can do that, then our investment in 22A would be a worthwhile tradeoff.)

GlobalFoundries also wants state backing for “payments to GlobalFoundries from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multi-state pact that spins off money to states with a low carbon footprint.” Gram’s report doesn’t go into the reasoning behind GF’s request; in the absence of more information, I have a feeling that there are more pertinent uses for the money.

But hey, GlobalFoundries is a yoooge employer, and its loss would cripple Vermont’s economy. We may not have much choice.

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