Category Archives: Health care reform

No more listening and learning

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After his humiliating near-defeat at the ham-fists of Scott Milne last November, Governor Shumlin said the result was “a very clear message to this governor to listen, learn, reflect, be more inclusive.”

Sounded good. But if he ever meant it, he’s all done with that wimpy crap now. On Friday, Shumlin was a guest on The Mark Johnson Show; it was a full-on display of his least endearing qualities. He stuck to his rhetorical guns; he sidestomped inconvenient questions; he refused to acknowledge any mistakes or failings; he contradicted himself with blind insouciance; he belittled those who disagree with him.

It was pretty damned awful. Perhaps it was understandable, since he spoke with Johnson directly after House Speaker Shap Smith’s appearance, in which he openly differed with Shumlin on the way forward for Vermont Health Connect. Shumlin has set two deadlines for VHC to hit designated performance targets, at the end of May and October; Smith says May is the only one that matters. And he said so, repeatedly, on live radio, mere minutes before Shumlin stepped to the mic.

And when the mic went live, here’s what the Governor had to say.

On the subject of Auditor Doug Hoffer’s report on VHC, which related a litany of bureaucratic and IT horrors:

No big surprises. Frankly, I’ve been saying, we’ve been saying since the exchange went up it’s been a huge disappointment.

Yeah, well, a few days before it went up, you used the infamous phrase “nothing-burger.”

Technically, I suppose it’s true that Shumlin has consistently expressed disappointment. But he’s also consistently expressed optimism that everything’s under control and a fix is just around the corner. He has made promises and set deadlines, and failed to meet his own performance marks every time. He has doused his own credibility with gasoline and set it afire.

I don’t think that’s a surprise to any Vermonters that are frustrated by the exchange.

This is one of Shumlin’s tiredest tricks: positioning himself as shoulder-to-shoulder with us Vermonters, sharing our aspirations and frustrations. Man Of The People. Hey, he likes to hunt and fish and drink Budweiser down at the Legion hall.

Problem is, it comes across as completely phony. It doesn’t convince anybody, no matter how painfully earnest his voice gets.

So really, the Auditor’s report reflects what we’ve been saying all along. It’s a helpful document, but we have dealt with the issues that he reported. That’s what audits tend to do; they look back instead of forward.

Perhaps true, but misleading. Hoffer’s audit focused on several independent reports evaluating the VHC process and recommending changes. Many of those changes were not made. Indeed, some previously identified problems continue to bedevil VHC and may prevent it from becoming fully operational.

ImNotWrongThere’s a bigger, more fundamental issue with Shumlin’s statement. He hates admitting he was ever wrong or uninformed. Trouble is, we’ve heard it before and we’ve stopped believing it.

What he should have said: “The Auditor’s report is a troubling document, revealing a number of failings by me and my administration. I apologize for the difficulties we have caused thousands of Vermonters. We are doing everything we can to correct our mistakes and do better from now on. I remain confident that Vermont Health Connect will become fully functional and serve Vermonters as we intended.”

Back to the real interview. For several minutes, Johnson tried to pin the Governor down on the real import of the two deadlines, May and October. What emerged was a kicking-and-screaming acknowledgement that there’s only one real deadline, and it’s the end of October.

I’m saying if those two functions don’t work by November, the deadline I laid out in a press conference a month ago, whenever it was, we are gonna look at whatever other options we have.

Well, actually he gave two deadlines. What would happen, Johnson asked, if the change of circumstance function isn’t working by the end of May — Shumlin’s self-selected deadline? Would the contractor get more time to fix it?

I’m not going to speculate on it not working. My job is to make it work.

That’s wrong on two counts. First, Shumlin himself has been talking about what will happen if it doesn’t work. And second, he’d be an irresponsible administrator if he didn’t have contingency plans.

Johnson, a bit taken aback by Shumlin’s assertion that he wasn’t “going to speculate on it not working,” replied “You’ve got to give the people some idea of what you’ll do if it doesn’t work.”

I did. I said if the change of circumstance is’t workin’ and if you can’t sign up folks for re-enrollment in November, we’re gonna make that decision together, we should move on if it doesn’t work.

Okay, so now he did do the very thing he just denied he had done. And he conveniently deep-sixed his own May deadline, opening a line of retreat for possible use on June 1.

Finally, Johnson asked if November was the real, actual deadline. Shumlin said “Yes.” Johnson pointed out that “The Speaker says it’s May.”

I don’t see this as a test of dates. I see this as a challenge to make the exchange work the way we all wish it to work for all Vermonters.

Well, it wasn’t the Speaker’s idea to set dates; it was the Governor’s. Now he doesn’t want to talk dates. And in downplaying May 31 in favor of October 31, he has deepened the divide between himself and Smith.

All in all, it was a performance that echoed the worst of pre-election Shumlin — the overweeningly self-confident Master Of His Domain and ersatz Man Of The People. I guess he’s done all the listening he wants to do, and he didn’t like what he heard.

Et tu, Shapleigh?

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Once in a while, even a jaded Political Observer sees something that cracks through his tough shell of cynicism and evinces a breathy “Whoa!” It happened last night when I was reading a report by VPR’s Peter Hirschfeld about Vermont Health Connect.

Background: Governor Shumlin has said he’ll be ready to explore alternatives to VHC if it fails to meet functionality deadlines at the end of May and October. The “Whoa!” comes courtesy of House Speaker Shap Smith, who flat-out said there’s only one deadline that matters, and it’s the first one.

Smith on Thursday morning said he’ll look to begin the transition to a federal version of the website if May passes without a change-of-circumstance fix. “If nearly two years after we try to bring the exchange online we still don’t have an exchange that works in an effective way, then I believe that we need to move to another system,” Smith says.

"Wait, what did you say?"

“Wait, what did you just say?”

That’s a pretty clear statement that pretty clearly puts Mr. Speaker and the Governor at odds. And Shap Smith is not one to speak without thinking. Carefully. Twice. At least.

If you had any doubt about that, Mr. Speaker doubled down on his comments today on “The Mark Johnson Show.”

If we don’t meet the May 31 deadline… we will need to explore other options.

He asserted that many Vermonters had “already lost confidence in the exchange,” and “at some point, they will lose all confidence.” And if May 31 comes and goes without success, “I don’t see how we can go to Vermonters” and tell them it will work eventually.

When Johnson noted that Shumlin has two deadlines, May and October, and asked “Is May your deadline?” Smith replied, “Yes.” He expressed hope that VHC will meet the May deadline, but sketched out a plan for legislative committees to work over the summer to develop alternatives.

Smith’s appearance before the Johnson microphone was followed, mirabile dictu, by Governor Shumlin himself. And Shumlin stuck to his guns.

“There are two dates. Change of circumstance needs to work by May 31, and re-enrollment by October 31. If those two functions aren’t working by November, we’ll be looking at other options.”

There it is. The two most powerful Democrats in Montpelier* have very different outlooks on Vermont Health Connect. If I were an irresponsible blogger, I’d be tempted to write something about “the opening salvos in the 2016 Democratic primary.” Good thing I’m not.

*John Campbell? Feh.

And really, that’s not what this is about. This is about identifying the best way forward. And in this case, Shap Smith is right: if VHC’s change of circumstance function isn’t working on June 1, it will be time to start finding another way — even if it can’t be implemented until the 2017 insurance year. Which everyone agrees it can’t.

Smith is acting less in his own political interest than in his party’s interest. Waiting until November would push the process of creating an alternative well into the 2016 campaign season. Democrats would only be able to offer promises to find a better way, which won’t convince anybody.

By this time next year, they must be able to articulate a clearly defined better way. Keeping to Shumlin’s timetable would risk immense harm to the Democratic Party in 2016. I suspect that Mr. Speaker isn’t willing to take that risk, even if the alternative is to throw shade on his own Governor.

Mind you, everyone — including Smith — wants VHC to work. They want all of this talk and speculation to be rendered moot. Smith doesn’t want to part ways with the Governor, and hopes he doesn’t have to take that step. But if May 31 comes and goes, he is prepared to move in another direction whether the Governor likes it or not.

Is there going to be a health care bill? Like, at all?

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The clock is ticking on the 2015 legislative session. We’re less than a month away from the usual adjournment, and a passel of “big bills” is just now crossing from the House to the Senate. These include the tax and budget bills, school reform legislation, the water cleanup bill, and the RESET  renewable energy package.

Conspicuous by its absence from this roll call of heavy lifting: the health care bill. It’s been dramatically downsized, and is still being batted around among three House committees. This week, the Ways and Means Committee barely managed to achieve a majority on a financing package after a lot of hand-wringing and internal disagreement. The Health Care Committee produced a scaled-down version of reforms costing about $20 million per year. But the Appropriations Committee, which has to approve the reform spending, has yet to weigh in. Approps chair Mitzi Johnson says her panel will hear testimony on the bill next week.

If that committee takes any route besides endorsement of Health Care’s bill, there may be a fresh round of back-and-forth between those two panels, just as there was between Health Care and Ways and Means on the revenue package.

And then, sometime next week at the absolute soonest, the health care bill will make its way, bloodied, bruised and limping, to the House floor.

If not “the absolute soonest”? We’re getting awfully close to mid-April.

Frankly, it’d take an uncommon outbreak of consensus in the House and between House and Senate for a health care bill of any kind to achieve passage in this session.

There’s a flood-stage ice jam of legislation forming in the Senate. This morning I watched one committee chair working with his staffer to find time to accommodate long and growing lists of potential witnesses. Can we assemble early some days? Can we schedule Monday meetings, an unusual and undesirable step, especially for lawmakers from distant parts of the state? The thought in my mind was, how can they possibly get all this done?

Breaking that jam and moving major bills will depend on the Senate running uncharacteristically smoothly, with unusually effective leadership (cough*John Campbell*cough) and widespread voluntary ego-suppression in Vermont’s Most Self-Important Deliberative Body.

The health care bill, if it gets to the Senate in some form, will take its place in line behind the other Big Bills. Most importantly, it will be the last of the big revenue bills to hit the Senate, and who knows how much appetite they have for tax increases. There’s a significant cohort of moderate-to-conservative Senate Democrats that can diminish or kill any tax measures, and they may be out for blood after pretty much having to approve new money for Lake Champlain and to fill part of the budget gap.

From what I’ve heard, the Senate’s outlook is even more of a mystery this year than usual, and that’s saying something. Big picture, the odds appear to be against any meaningful health care reform getting through the legislature this year.

Which would be a bad thing in three important ways:

— The bill would reduce the sinfully large Medicaid gap. The Shumlin plan would substantially reduce it; the House Health Care plan would make a series dent, at least for primary care providers.

— The bill, in either form, includes more money for proven cost-saving strategies in Blueprint for Health and the Green Mountain Care Board. Continuing to bend the cost curve is crucial to the long-term success of the reform project.

— And third, for those who insist on the humanitarian angle, is that either bill would ease access for thousands of working poor Vermonters.

Lawmakers and legislative leadership know all this. If they didn’t, the bill wouldn’t have gotten as far as it has in a difficult year. Improving health care is a serious priority — but so are a lot of other things. It’d be a shame if health care fell victim to the legislature’s time crunch, but it wouldn’t exactly be a surprise.

Look out, here comes the Bee Pollen Brigade

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Here’s the topline for today’s developments re: funding for improvements to Vermont’s health care system:

$20 million.

That’s the target figure for new revenue agreed upon by key House leaders. A big comedown from the House Health Care Committee’s $52 million, but enough to make some progress in closing the Medicaid gap*, enhancing access for the working poor, and trying to attract more primary care providers.

*The gap closure is likely to favor primary care doctors, since they’re the front line of health care and also the most financially precarious.

Exactly how the House will get to $20 million is unclear. House Ways and Means is aiming to pass a bill this week*, but it would then face an uncertain fate in the Appropriations Committee. And the House floor. And the Senate.

*Committee vote today postponed due to the absences of two Democratic members.

But $20 million seems etched in stone, at least in the House. So this morning, Ways and Means examined five different tax packages that would raise roughly $20 million per year. The options include: some sort of tax on sugar-sweetened AND diet beverages, removing the sales tax exemptions on candy, sweetened beverages, imposing the rooms and meals tax on vending machiens, increasing taxes on cigarettes and/or tobacco products, and my fave: imposing the sales tax on dietary supplements.

Gasp! Yes, lawmakers might force us to pay sales tax on cranberry extract pills, antioxidants, probiotics, pro-oxidants (is that a thing?), and all those other sundry preparations clogging the shelves of your local food co-op.

I am now counting down to the arrival of the Bee Pollen Brigade with cries of outrage. This could be the next mass invasion of the Statehouse.

But it’s among the least unpalatable options before Ways and Means. As of this writing, there’s no sense of a committee consensus or even a majority behind any of the five tax packages. (Conservative Democrat Jim Condon tried a Hail Mary pass this morning; he floated the idea of selling bonds to pay for some health care reforms. The idea was quickly shot down by the Treasurer’s office, which pointed out that it’s considered improvident to bond for short-term spending. Or, to put it in Treasurer’s terms, “You should make sure the useful life of the asset is at least as long as the life of the bond.”)

Ways and Means is working from five proposed tax packages; all five are outlined, with revenue estimates, on the committee’s website.

So, the details of the revenue package remain unclear, but the bottom line is not.

$20 million for health care.

Glass half full, glass half empty

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There are two ways of looking at the 2015 legislative session so far. Well, two if you’re on the left-of-center side of the political equation. The right, I suppose, is probably in full Ted Cruz “The World Is On Fire” mode.

You can look at it like Progressive Rep. Chris Pearson during last week’s House budget debate, lamenting big cuts to human services: “There have been program cuts every year since I joined the legislature in 2006.”

The glass is half empty. If you’re a liberal or progressive Vermonter, it seems like we’ve been in constant retreat since Peter Shumlin took office. And it got worse after the November election, with conventional wisdom telling us that Republican gains were due to Democratic overreach, the governor abandoning single-payer health care, and Democrats scurrying to the center.

Then there’s the glass-half-full approach. House Ways and Means Committee chair Janet Ancel noted that this year’s tax bill represented the biggest one-year revenue increase in all her years on the committee. And Health Care Committee chair BIll Lippert had this phlegmatic reaction to the rapid diminution of the health care reform bill:

We knew when we put that together it was robust. That was our job, to articulate priorities and how to get there. But I think in the context of the $35 million that was raised on the floor [in the tax bill], and $8 million for the lake [Champlain], if we were so fortunate as to have $20 million for health care, that’s a pretty big appetite for raising revenue in one year. So I would be pleased to have that much dedicated to health care in a year that’s as financially difficult as this.

And, the unspoken corollary: “I won’t be surprised if we get less than $20 million.”

Which leads back to my previous post, “Peter Shumlin: Defender of Liberalism.” If the House is stripping most or all the funding from health care initiatives, we’ll have to depend on the Governor’s political muscle — if he still has any — to get it back.

Anyway, which way do you see it: glass half full or glass half empty?

The current situation has echoes throughout the five-plus-year tenure of Gov. Shumlin. He’s delivered some good stuff, more than many liberals are willing to admit, while keeping the ship afloat in tough budgetary times. Plus, he’s been swimming against three powerful tides: a sluggish recovery which has yet to benefit the middle or working classes, a tax system that has failed to keep up with our changing economy, and the effort to fully fund public-sector pension plans that were revenue-starved by previous administrations. (Lookin’ at you, Tom Pelham.)

On the other hand, many of Shumlin’s promises have been curtailed or abandoned — most notably single payer health care, the issue that arguably won him the 2010 Democratic primary and hence the governorship. Plus, liberal expectations were inflated, fairly or not, possibly both, by the size of the Democratic majority. Shumlin and legislative Democrats never seemed to realize how much political capital they had; and now, much of it is gone, unspent.

And on the other other hand, it’s not as if the last five years have been without accomplishment. And it’s not as if this legislative session will be a failure if we don’t get significant movement on health care reform.

It’ll just kinda feel like one.

Peter Shumlin, Defender of Liberalism

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So this is what we’ve come down to: as the House continues to slash away at health care reform, Governor Shumlin has become its stoutest defender.

Isn’t it ironic, don’tcha think. A little sad, too.

Here’s the situation: the House Health Care Committee originally came up with a $52 million package that would have greatly reduced the Medicaid gap, made health care more accessible to our growing cohort of working poor*, expanded proven measures to enhance delivery while holding down costs, and boosted incentives for badly-needed primary care providers.

*Thanks to our top-heavy economic recovery, which has produced stagnant wages and lots of jobs with unlivable wages while fattening the pockets of the wealthy and corporate.  

The Ways and Means Committee couldn’t agree on any tax scheme to pay for the $52 million — or even part of it. So the ball got bounced back to Health Care with a new diktat: devise a bill that will only cost $20 million a year.

The two committees remain at loggerheads, with each other and within their own ranks. Health Care can’t decide how to downsize its deftly-woven tapestry without the whole thing unraveling, and Ways and Means can’t reach consensus on a tax plan to produce $20 million.

Which almost certainly means the package will be further reduced before it even gets to the full House.

This is where Peter Shumlin, Defender of Liberalism comes in.

“I think that it’s really important that we make real progress here, and you’re not going to make real progress with $10 or $20 million,” the governor said in an interview Friday.

That interview was with the Vermont Press Bureau’s Neal Goswami, who wrote a front-page story in today’s Times Argus about the developing tussle between cautious lawmakers and a determined governor. (The story is paywalled, but you can listen to the interview for free.)

Shumlin rightly points out that a modest health care package would leave “$100 million of federal [matching] money on the table,” and would reduce private insurance rates by closing the Medicaid gap. Penny wise and pound foolish, you might say.

Problem is, the legislature is in penny-pinching mode after approving a tax bill that will raise $33 million in new revenue. Well, that’s the next problem. The first problem is Ways and Means, which has just enough centrist votes to effectively roadblock any of the tax plans outlined by Shumlin or the Health Care Committee.

Hmmm. And who, pray tell, appointed the committee? Oh yeah: Mr. Speaker.

Ways and Means has eleven members. A bill needs at least six votes to pass. But wait, you might be saying, there are seven Democrats on the committee and only three Republicans.

Well yeah, but two of the Democrats are definitely in the party’s centrist wing. Jim Condon is one of the most conservative Dems in the legislature, and Sam Young is definitely a taxation skeptic. The lone independent, ski resort mogul Adam Greshin, might as well be a Republican.

That leaves five relatively liberal votes, and a tough task for committee chair Janet Ancel to find a majority for any tax proposal.

Problem is, the Governor is right: spending more up front would make the system more robust and effective, and bring down costs for private payers. It’d also bring in the aforementioned truckload of federal matching funds.

And oh yes, if you’re interested in the “humanity” angle, it’d make health care accessible to thousands more Vermonters.

Goswami reports that Shumlin “may have to turn his attention to the Senate if he is to rescue his own plans.”

Oh boy. The disorganized, testosterone-and-ego-fueled Senate, with the centrist Cerebus of John Campbell, Dick Mazza and Phil Scott guarding the portal.

Good luck with that, Governor.

.House Health Care gets the brown plate special

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Recently, the House Health Care Committee passed a health care bill that raised $52 million in new revenue to pay for an array of reforms, including better Medicaid reimbursement for providers and more premium support for the working poor. It proposed raising the revenue through a payroll tax and a sugar-sweetened beverage tax.

Then it went to the Ways and Means Committee, which couldn’t agree on either tax. Technically they have yet to agree, but they did send guidance to the Health Care Committee that it should craft a plan requiring no more than $20 million a year. Ways and Means is reportedly moving toward a smaller version of the beverage tax to raise that money, although nothing is final.

Well, as one of my childhood heroes, Detroit Lions great Joe Schmidt, says, “Life is a shit sandwich, and every day you take another bite.” When the Health Care Committee reconvened this morning with that guidance in mind, they looked like they’d been served the Brown Plate Special. Glum faces all around. As committee chair BIll Lippert said, tongue slightly in cheek, “We can’t do all that we have to do.”

Committee members had no clear idea how to proceed. There were widely varying ideas. Anytime a specific cut of any size was suggested, sound and reasonable objections were voiced.

When they looked at the overall picture, some members wanted to make big cuts here and hold harmless there; but they all had different heres and theres.

At the end of a necessarily brief discussion (before the House convened for the day), Lippert thanked everyone for their input and said he would try to put together a proposal for futther discussion. And he noted that the committee would need to adopt some kind of bill by the end of the day tomorrow. He didn’t sound very happy.

Whatever Health Care comes up with, it’s likely to face the ax down the road. It’s still unclear whether Ways and Means can pass the reduced beverage tax, to say nothing of its fate in the full House and Senate. If I were a betting man, I’d say any new health care initiatives are going to be whittled down to nothing, or nearly so.

Our Leaders will plead fiscal responsibility in tough times, and perhaps start looking for a bone to throw to disaffected liberals.

House Ways and Means at impasse

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This afternoon, the House Ways and Means Committee was scheduled to discuss the health care bill. You know, the one with the two-tax solution: the .3% payroll tax and the sugar-sweetened beverage tax.

Well, it didn’t happen.

The committee took testimony in the morning. But after lunch, members did not reassemble. At one point, committee chair Janet Ancel entered the Ways and Means room; I asked her what the plan was.

I don’t have her exact words, but here’s the gist. They’d heard from all the witnesses, but the committee had stalled out on the two tax provisions. Neither tax would get majority support in the committee, if she held votes today. So, no votes.

No witnesses left. (She jokingly asked me if I’d like to testify.) And apparently she feels that more discussion or debate wouldn’t change any minds.

Welp, without those two tax provisions, there’ll hardly be any money for closing the Medicaid gap or any of the other improvements adopted by the House Health Care Committee.

Ancel had no idea what would happen next, or when it might happen.

Of course, either tax (or both) could be added back at a later point. But if Ways and Means can’t agree on a funding mechanism, it’s  certainly a discouraging sign for those of us hoping to redeem a few scraps of the lost promise of single payer health care.

The budget gap: an alternative story

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A simple narrative has emerged to explain Vermont’s budget gap of roughly $113 million. Oddly, tragically, it’s pretty much the same narrative whether you’re Republican or Democrat.

The Republicans’ version goes like this: The Democrats are out of control! They’re taxing and spending like drunken sailors!

Some liberals raise a fundamental objection to this — but not Gov. Shumlin. Now, he couches it differently; his version is that Vermont’s economic growth has failed to meet expectations and that state spending has overreached. But his underlying assumption — the state has spent beyond its means — is very similar to the Republicans’.

Gee, no wonder he had trouble developing a clear narrative in the 2014 campaign.

It’s true that the economy has underperformed expectations — but that’s not a phenomenon unique to Vermont. Nor is it attributable to our alleged “tax, spend and regulate” ways. By many measures we’re doing better than our northeastern neighbors. And we’re doing a hell of a lot better than states with hard-core free-market governments like Wisconsin, Michigan and Kansas.

(The states where free-market ideology is credited for booming economies enjoy unrelated economic advantages: Texas and North Dakota’s fossil fuel wealth, Arizona and Florida’s retirement havens and influx of immigrants.)

(Yes, immigrants. Most of them are hardworking people who came here in search of a better life. They add energy and ambition as well as cultural spice to our melting pot. We could use more of them here in Vermont.)

There’s an alternate story to tell about how we got into this fix. Strangely enough, it actually shows the Shumlin administration in a positive light. If only the Governor was willing to tell it.

Part of our problem is the structure of our tax system, as previously discussed in this space. ur income tax system has an extremely narrow base because of how we calculate taxable income and allow itemized deductions.  We’re losing tens of millions in potential revenue because our sales tax system has more holes than Swiss cheese. (Sen. Tim Ashe, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, estimates that we’re losing $50 million a year because of Internet sales. That’s not new tax money; it’s money we used to collect and aren’t anymore.)

The rest of the problem is that the Democrats have been responsible stewards, even if it means short-term trouble. They’ve tried to manage state finances in difficult times while maintaining state programs that have a beneficial impact on our present and future well-being.

Programs like Reach Up and expanded health care access and substance abuse treatment aren’t giveaways; they’re aimed at giving Vermonters a way out of systemic poverty. There’s also an immediate benefit: money spent in programs like food stamps and LIHEAP and the Earned Income Tax Credit go directly back into the economy, creating much more positive impact than capital gains tax cuts or corporate tax breaks.

And here’s a great big item that, sadly, I didn’t even realize until Saturday when House Speaker Shap Smith addressed the State Democratic Committee. The Democrats have spent millions to restore full funding to public sector pension plans. Smith mentioned $60 million, and called it a significant reason for our budget troubles.

Which is true. But it’s also the responsible — nay, the legally required — thing to do. The pension gap was created through years of mismanagement under previous administrations. (You know, those administrations that featured budget hawk Tom Pelham in prominent roles.) They took the easy way out of budget predicaments: putting off the day or reckoning. As Smith said, “we’re making up for the sins of the past.”

Really, it’s the Republicans who are bad managers. They are so single-mindedly focused on cutting that they fail to develop any sort of vision for governing. And they undercut the good things that government can, and should, do.

Two more overdue investments. First, the current administration has instituted health care reforms that have produced some waste and a bug-riddled website, but have also cut our uninsured population to 3.7%, compared to a national average of 12%.

And second, it’s making a long-overdue attempt to clean up Lake Champlain. That’s another legacy of the short-sighted practices of past administrations: they ignored the problem and let it get worse. And more expensive to fix.

These are noteworthy accomplishments. They are the right things to do. They are not wild or radical or thoughtless. And they are big reasons why we’re in our current budgetary difficulties.

And that’s it. It’s not a narrative of spendthrift liberals bankrupting the state. It’s a narrative of careful investment in Vermont’s future weighed down by a legacy of bad management and an outdated, creaky tax system.

This is not to say that I agree with everything the Democrats do. They’ve been too careful for my taste. But they do have a compelling story to tell.

Too bad nobody’s telling it.

Is this the end of Rico?

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Well, if this isn’t the mother of all Friday newsdumps.

After 18 months of headaches caused by Vermont Health Connect, Gov. Peter Shumlin announced Friday that he’s prepared to replace the online health insurance marketplace if it fails to meet two new deadlines.

(Note: According to VTDigger, Shumlin first made his announcement on WDEV’s Mark Johnson Show. Credit where it’s due.)

Yeezus. I make a little day trip to New Hampshire, and this is what happens? I may never leave Vermont again.

“This is not an attractive option,” Shumlin’s chief of health care reform, Lawrence Miller, said at the press conference.

Miller added that “bubonic plague can ruin your day, and zombies are bad news.”

In the past I have occasionally been guilty of hyperbole, so it’s understandable if you take this with a grain of salt, but…

This doesn't end well.

This doesn’t end well.

If Vermont Health Connect fails, it is the end of Peter Shumlin’s political career.

It wouldn’t be the last act; he’d still remain governor for another year and a half. But the abandonment of VHC would be a death blow to whatever’s left of his reputation for managerial competence. And trustworthiness. He will have a simple, stark choice: Serve out his term as best he can, step aside with grace and dignity (and hopefully a big show of unity with a consensus candidate for the Democratic nomination)… or go down in a metaphorical burst of tommygun fire.

Mind, all this is contingent on the failure of VHC, which is far from a sure thing. But given its track record (and the Governor’s), today’s announcement has to send shivers down the spines of everyone who’s invested political capital in the Shumlin Growth Fund.

The song goes like this: assurances of success; bumps in the road; conditional assurances of success; postponements; failures; promises to learn lessons and do better; new plans with later deadlines; fresh assurances; lather, rinse, repeat.

We have just gone from “assurances of success” to “conditional assurances.”

The fallback plan, should VHC again fail to meet functionality targets, is a hybrid marketplace: federally supported but state-regulated. It’s not a terrible Plan B, but it would put the lie to every assurance Governor Shumlin has made about Vermont Health Connect since its launch. It would hand the Republicans a huge quantity of ammunition, and it would permanently sink Shumlin’s managerial reputation.

The Governor’s new timeline:

Shumlin said he would only deploy the contingency plan if Vermont Health Connect is unable to automatically process changes in account information by May or if it’s unable to smoothly reenroll users by October. Even then, the state would not adopt the new system until October 2016, in time for the 2017 open-enrollment period.

Oh great. So if VHC isn’t working by October, then we’ll be activating Plan B right in the middle of the next gubernatorial campaign.

And what if anything — at all — goes wrong? It drags on until after the election. If that happens, it may not matter who the Democrats nominate.

If all that happens, Peter Shumlin will not only go down in history as a failure. He’ll also be the guy who squandered a king’s ransom in political capital for his Democratic Party.