Category Archives: Health care reform

Corren meets the Dems

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The Democratic Party State Committee met Saturday in Montpelier, and gave its endorsement to the Party’s expected slate with one exception: Dean Corren, Progressive candidate for Lieutenant Governor. He did not actually seek an official endorsement from the state committee, but he did address the gathering and asked for their support in getting people to write in his name in the August primary.

“I got into this race on one issue,” he said, “Single payer health care.” He described this as a critical time for the issue, and said “We need a Lieutenant Governor working shoulder to shoulder with Governor Shumlin. I would be a good partner in this fight.”

(He didn’t say, but I will, that the Lieutenant Governor casts tie-breaking votes in the Senate. If Corren’s there, passing single-payer becomes easier than if Phil Scott wields the gavel. That, in itself, is a powerful incentive for Democrats, Progressives and liberals to unite behind Corren, no matter how much of a nice guy Scott may be.)

He also emphasized his common ground with the Democrats on two key issues: campaign finance reform and renewable energy. Since he qualified for public financing, you could say he has struck a real blow on the issue of money in politics. On energy, he pointed to his own professional involvement in climate change and green energy.

He also addressed the past (and for some, present) tensions between Democrats and Progressives. “We are more interested in progress than in bashing anyone.”

There was a lot of favorable reaction in the room. Corren took several questions, and all were supportive.Longtime committee member Bill Sander recalled past times when the party actively considered endorsing Republican challengers to then-Congressman Bernie Sanders, on the theory that they could get rid of Bernie and then beat the Republican two years later. Now, Sander said, “Our goal is to further the policies we believe in,” and that includes working alongside Bernie instead of trying to undercut him.

Some committee members obviously wanted to go ahead with an endorsement, but it wasn’t on the agenda. John Wilmerding of Windham County posited an endorsement via the transitive property: the state committee had previously endorsed then-candidate John Bauer; since then, Bauer has endorsed Corren; and if A equals B and B equals C, then maybe the committee has already, kinda-sorta, endorsed Corren. No one argued the point, but it remained in the unofficial realm.

After his presentation, Corren had a brief media scrum in the hallway. He pronounced himself “extremely” encouraged by the committee’s reaction. “It was wonderful. I couldn’t be more pleased.”

He was asked if he’d run into any Dem/Prog tensions in his contacts with party officials. “Actually, I haven’t,” he said. “My calls to state committee members and county chairs and so forth have all been incredibly positive.”

After this week’s anti-Prog comments from a few state senators, it was good to see the Democratic hierarchy taking a more positive view of Corren. Maybe the “Dems for Phil Scott” idea is mostly a creation of the Senate’s clubby, cloistered atmosphere.

I certainly hope so.

The Bailey Do

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do, N.

1. (chiefly dialect) fuss, ado

3. a festive get-together: affair, party

5. (British) cheat, swindle

(from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary)

I guess Todd Baley’s parents are out of town, because he’s throwing a big party at their Middlesex home this month. Shades of “Risky Business,” in more ways than one.

The Bailey Do is a fundraiser for the least deserving of Vermont political causes, Peter Shumlin’s bulging campaign warchest. Which already contains three times as much money as he’s likely to spend this season. 

The host, Todd Bailey, is an acquaintance of mine and head of the (so-called) white-hat lobbying shop, KSE Partners. One of KSE’s chief causes is health care reform. And, as VTDigger reports, one of Bailey’s co-hosts is Tess Taylor, former House Democratic Whip, now head of Vermont CURE, a single-payer advocacy group and a client of (wait for it…) KSE Partners. And, the top priority in the next biennium will be hammering out the details of a single-payer health care system.

Comfy-cozy.

Bailey contends there’s nothing to see here, keep moving along.

“Campaigns are funded through private donations and every lobbyist in the state of Vermont is going to participate in some type of fundraising activity,” he said Friday. “This is how the system functions. We’re simply exercising our constitutional rights.”

Yeah, just like Karl Rove and the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson.

In fact, Bailey is right: as the system is currently structured, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Bailey and Taylor fundraising for the Governor they hope to work with on the single biggest issue before the Legislature.

It might look bad, in a Captain Renault sort of way. But it’s perfectly legal, and Bailey et al. are exercising their constitutional rights as delineated by, ahem, the Roberts Court.

Liberal stalwart, retired lobbyist, and ass-kickin’ bluesman Bob Stannard agrees with Bailey: nothing to see here.

“You can treat them right and hope you get a little more time with them, but if the ideas you’re pushing are out of sync with theirs, it’s not going to happen,” Stannard said.

And then he added the laugh line of the entire article:

If other people feel their voice isn’t being heard, Stannard suggested they throw their own fundraisers.

Mmm-hmm. That’ll get ’em on Shumlin’s short list. Sorry, Bob, but that’s just weak.

Also making a Captain Renault-style appearance in the Digger story is Brady Toensing, vice chair of the VTGOP and a veteran of the inside-the-Beltway fandango. He is Shocked, Shocked that fundraising is going on:

The situation is illustrative of “just how farcical all the complicated campaign finance and lobbying rules and regulations really are.”

Well, your dander is conveniently raised, Mr. Toensing. I presume you’re just as outraged when conservative causes and businesses pump hundreds of millions into SuperPACs?

Nnnnehh, didn’t think so.

Back to the Bailey Do. It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the next legislative session when VPIRG pushes its chosen issue of the year — campaign finance reform, including bans on corporate and lobbyist contributions to candidates.

Because the Democrats are fond of complaining about the influence of money in politics… except when it benefits them. And the Bailey Do is perfectly legal… within a system that desperately needs a makeover and new limits on what’s “perfectly legal.”

Bailey and Stannard did their best to justify a system that works for them because the Democrats rule our roost. And Toensing is Shocked, Shocked because his party is on the short end of this particular stick. If he was able to attract the attention of the Golden Dome’s power brokers, I’m sure he’d be fine with their exercise of constitutional rights as expressed in generous check-writing.

I don’t really think that backroom deals will be made chez Bailey. No real corruption. But it looks and smells bad. It’s the kind of thing that makes people feel shut out of the process, and give up on trying to influence their officeholders.

Besides, why the Hell does Shumlin need more loot?

So, maybe health care reform is working?

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For those of us who practice compassionate liberalism (which is actually a thing, unlike compassionate conservatism), the primary reason for health care reform is to ensure that everyone can access the services they need. But reform isn’t going to work unless it meets another goal: containing the costs of health care, which were out of control under the old system.

And here’s some good news on the green-eyeshade front, courtesy of VPR:

Vermont’s 14 hospitals have submitted budgets for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 that increase by just 2.6 percent over the current year’s budgets, the smallest annual increase for the Vermont health care delivery system in four decades.

… The 2.6 percent inflation figure follows on the heels of a 2.7 percent jump in the current year. Taken together, the performance of the hospital system should be considered a positive augury in the coming debate over Gov. Peter Shumlin’s single-payer reform initiative.

Kudos to VPR’s Hamilton Davis for slipping “positive augury” into his script. Few radio reporters would dare so much.

Anyway, yeah, two consecutive years of low cost increases for Vermont hospitals. In fact, as Davis reports, those increases are roughly one-third the rate of increase since the year 2000. And this year’s figures came in under the Green Mountain Care Board’s target of 3 percent. GMCB chair Al Gobeille pronounced himself “very pleased” with the submissions.

It’s still early days in health care reform, but something is obviously working. And this is a “positive augury” because state law requires the government to demonstrate an ability to control costs in order for Governor Shumlin’s single-payer health plan to go forward. So far, so good.