Category Archives: Health care reform

The Assassination of Mary Morrissey by the Coward Shap Smith

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The Burlington Free Press doesn’t have much time for state government these days, what with the dismissal of its entire Statehouse bureau and its obvious skeleton-crewing in recent weeks.

But boy, they’ve got plenty of time to spare for the potential reassignment of a single Republican back-bencher.

[State Rep. Mary] Morrissey, [R-Bennington]… confirmed Friday she has been told that House Speaker Shap Smith, D-Morristown has plans to reassign her to a yet to be determined committee.

… Morrissey said she sees the move as an effort to silence a legislator who has been forced to ask tough questions that Democrats are not asking themselves.

Or, to put it another way, it’s a routine committee reshuffle, the kind that happens every couple of years. A whole lot of others will be shifted around in the next few days. It is within the purview of the Speaker to make committee assignments.

Morrissey and her allies are depicting this move as an effort to stymie oversight of health care reform. Which, frankly, gives a hell of a lot of credit to Morrissey. In my brief exposure to her work, she seems to be a garden-variety naysayer on health care reform, ideologically opposed to Obamacare and Shummycare under any circumstances, and not offering any special expertise on the subject.

The Speaker himself put it this way:

“I’ve spent a lot of time looking at a group of people that will work well together to come up with policy,” Smith said.

“I want to put together people who will work effectively together and don’t have baggage from past fights,” Smith said.

Since Morrissey is toting a steamer trunk full of conservative dogma, Smith seems to have reason for her removal. It has less to do with the alleged danger she poses to Democrats, and more to do with her kneejerk opposition. She’s not a watchdog, she’s a fallen tree in the roadway.

Her possible removal from the Health Care Committee is standard operating practice. And, frankly, not that big a deal. It’s not like she’s the only one who can ask inconvenient questions, and it’s not like she has special knowledge of the health care system.

Well, if she does, she hasn’t shown it.

Another conveniently incomplete explanation from Art Woolf

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Just in time for Christmas, Vermont’s Loudest Economist has left a flaming bag of conventional-wisdom poo on our doorsteps. (At least he didn’t try to come down the chimney.)

He’s scribbled out a column entitled “Explaining Demise of Single-Payer.” Which, of course, does virtually nothing to explain the demise of single-payer. I mean, this is Art Woolf we’re talking about here.

The good professor spends most of his time on a shallow meander down Memory Lane, explaining that despite the efforts of the last three Vermont Governors, our percentage of uninsured Vermonters has remained basically the same.

Of course, Woolf’s entire argument falls apart right there, because his beloved statistics end at 2013 — before the Affordable Care Act had gotten off the launchpad. So he’s telling us that Shumlin has failed to reduce the uninsured population, even though Shumlin’s reforms hadn’t begun to work.

Sheesh.

Woolf goes on to the only useful part of his “analysis.” In recent years there have been efforts to expand Medicaid eligibility, and they have worked. However, there’s been a corresponding decline in coverage through employers, so it all washes out.

Us liberals would blame this on a worldwide, concerted effort to drive down wages and benefits — the race to the bottom, as revealed in the stagnation of buying power for all but the very top earners, the persistent crappening of benefits such as employer-provided health insurance (and the steady cost-shifting to employees by way of worker contributions, high deductibles and copays) and the virtual disappearance of defined-benefit pension plans.

Woolf, good capitalist lackey that he is, blames the loss of employer health insurance on the expansion of Medicaid.

What apparently has happened during the past 15 to 20 years is that some employers who formerly provide insurance to their workers no longer provide that benefit. Most likely, it’s because their employees can get a better coverage plan at no or low cost from the state.

“What apparently has happened,” my ass. Woolf might be justified in making that evidence-free assumption, if not for all the other evidence that employers are squeezing their workers and transferring responsibility for their well-being to the government. (See: all the Walmart employees on some form of public assistance. I guess Woolf would blame that on welfare, not on a greedy corporation.)

The toxicity of Woolf’s presentation becomes clearer in th;e ensuing paragraph:

Their employers can therefore afford to pay their workers higher wages instead of providing health insurance benefits. This is one of the unintended consequences of government policies that are all-too-often overlooked by policymakers.

Well, sure, they CAN afford to pay higher wages. But they DON’T. And Woolf knows damn well that they don’t. He must be aware that working Americans’ wages have been stagnant for decades.

And he must be deliberately excluding that fact from his presentation so he can preserve his dubious conclusion: government largesse is to blame for private-sector miserliness. If not for Medicaid expansion, he is effectively saying, working Americans would still be getting health insurance from their employers.

Working Americans can only respond with a bitter laugh.

He also blames Medicaid for the rising cost of health care: because Medicaid offers low reimbursement rates to providers, they have to charge more to private insurance carriers. Which is true, but again, it leaves employers out of the equation.

Finally, in the last paragraph of Woolf’s column, we get to “Explaining the Demise of Single-Payer.” Sort of:

The state’s Medicaid expansion now provides a backstop for lower- and middle-income Vermonters who might lose their private health insurance. This means the third goal, the fear of becoming uninsured, might have lessened over time for many Vermonters.

Perhaps that’s one reason why there wasn’t greater support for single-payer in Vermont, and why there wasn’t more opposition to the governor’s recent announcement.

Oh, so we should blame the demise of single-payer on the patchwork success of Medicaid? Nothing else at play here, Art?

To be fair, Woolf doesn’t necessarily write the headlines, so maybe he’s not responsible for the vast overpromise of this one. But he is responsible for the incomplete, one-sided “logic” that resides beneath.

Art Woolf’s weekly words of wisdom usually come to us on Thursdays. This one was published on Wednesday. Perhaps tomorrow, on Christmas Day, Woolf will favor us with his reasoned defense of Ebenezer Scrooge, and how the government’s generous provision of prisons and workhouses helped drive down wages in Victorian England.

Single payer: a third party is heard from

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I’ve been wondering when this would come. A statement, with the title in ALL CAPS, from the Progressive Party:

SHUMLIN’S DECISION TO SCRAP SINGLE PAYER A BETRAYAL OF VERMONT’S WORKING FAMILIES

And no, the Progs don’t usually go ALL CAPS.

The reaction is understandable; the Progs had put their statewide ambitions largely on hold for the sake of single payer.

The Vermont Progressive Party dis not run Progressive challenges against Governor Shumlin in the last three cycles, in large part because of his unwavering promise to lead on single payer.

If the Progs had run a candidate this year, no matter how perfunctory, we’d almost certainly be talking Governor-elect Milne right now.

The anger continues:

While we are outraged by Shumlin’s broken promises, we are not terribly surprised. … rather than work through [the] issues or scale back the project, Shumlin decided to scrap it entirely (and with it, many Vermonters’ hopes of a just and accessible healthcare system).

Indeed, it’s easy to conclude that the Governor put his thumb on the single payer scale in order to make it seem more unattainable than it already was. He opted for a top-level plan (94 Actuarial Value) instead of more modest coverage (80 AV), which increased costs. He insisted on a three-year phase-in of the payroll tax for small businesses, which slashed revenues. (His team also suddenly realized that those long-touted “administrative savings” weren’t going to happen.) Those may have been reasonable policy choices, but when you have Shumlin’s reputation for slickness and hippie-kicking, it’s not hard to assign the worst possible motive: the Governor wanted to squirm out of his promises, so he stacked the deck against single payer.

Governor Shumlin only seems concerned about the projected future economic burden to businesses, not the burden that working people are bearing right now.

Yup. His announcement was chock-full of references to financial realities and business concerns — and reminders of his own personal pain, awww — while conspicuous by their absence were any mentions of equity, accessibility, or the burdensome nature of the current system. And he sure as hell didn’t call health care a “human right.”

The Progs’ release includes a not-so-veiled threat of a Progressive candidate for Governor in 2016. Imagine, if you will, this scenario:

Shumlin has spent his third term tamping down expectations, cutting programs to balance the budget, pursuing incremental rather than transformational progress. The Republicans nominate Phil Scott, who doesn’t look much different ideologically than Shumlin, has a much more attractive personality, and can win back the business donors who’ve been backing Shumlin.  And the Progs challenge from the left.

In that scenario, Shumlin is well and truly screwed.

Shumlin waves the white flag

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The governor’s number-one public policy goal is no more.

At a news conference today, Governor Shumlin pulled single payer health care off the table, saying the numbers simply don’t add up. Instead, he promised a continued effort to improve access to, and lower the cost of, health care in Vermont.

“This is the greatest disappointment of my political life,” he said, and that nails it. Single payer was one of the foundations of his initial run for governor in 2010. His promise to push for single payer set him apart in a crowded Democratic field and helped overcome doubts about his liberal bona fides.  That promise kept the Progressive Party on the sidelines in 2012 and 2014.

And now, it’s not gonna happen.

Oh, he promised a continued fight for a fairer and more accessible system, starting with the 2015 legislative session. But single payer is out until further notice. When asked, “If not in 2017, when?” he only answered in generalities.

As for the timing of the announcement, only six weeks after the election, Shumlin claimed that his team had just finished working the numbers last Friday and confirmed the bad news on Monday.

The numbers were unacceptably bad. Morgan True of VTDigger had reported that the financing mechanism would be based on an 8% payroll tax and a consumer premium imposed on a sliding scale. But the way the numbers shook out, the actual payroll tax would have to be more like 11.5%, and the premiums would have to be higher than expected. The result could punish the economy and leave many Vermonters with higher health care costs.

He cited several factors that moved single payer out of reach. Federal subsidies were not going to be as generous as hoped. The sluggish economic recovery meant fewer dollars coming into the treasury. That had led to state cuts in Medicaid payments that reduced federal support.

Also, the administration had decided a three-year phase-in for small businesses that don’t currently provide insurance was necessary to cushion the shock of a payroll tax. That phase-in meant substantially lower payroll tax revenue for the first three years.

Shumlin was clearly sensitive to the concerns of the business community. That, and his woodshedding in the November election. He saw single payer as a huge gamble that he was unlikely to win, and now is not the time to stick his neck out.

He also acknowledged that the troubled rollout of Vermont Health Connect cost him credibility on building a new health care system. “We must show we can deliver,” he said. “Vermonters have reason to question us, given the troubles with Vermont Health Connect.”

He emphasized all the hard work that’s been done to create Vermont Health Connect, bend down the cost curve, and lay the groundwork for a better system. And he promised a continued, all-out effort to improve the system. But single payer was his signature deal, and now he’s had to forego it.

Even if the delay is relatively brief — say, two years — single payer is almost certainly unattainable during his tenure in office.  The failure of single payer will be a big part of his legacy, and will significantly hamstring his ability to win back liberal and Progressive voters who’ve been skeptical of him.

Fair or not, today’s announcement confirms that skepticism. Let’s accept that the numbers are honest and the timing was just the way things worked out. Even so, the optics are bad.

There are many liberals who never believed Shumlin was serious about single payer. They will see their cynicism as confirmed.

This retreat will also lend great comfort to the foes of health care reform. A determined Democratic governor, with all the resources he could want, spent three years researching single payer, only to conclude that it wouldn’t work. The revised cost estimate for single payer — $2.6 billion a year — is almost exactly what Wendy Wilton, then-Republican candidate for Treasurer, estimated two years ago.

And the abandonment of single payer strips the governor of his signature issue. Aside from Tropical Storm Irene, his administration has been marked by incremental gains on a number of issues and blocking tax hikes. There haven’t been any high-profile accomplishments — which is why one of Shumlin’s re-election ads focused on GMO labeling, an issue he didn’t support until the last minute. And why a recurring theme in other ads was Irene recovery, something that happened in his first term.

Now we can now look forward to more incremental gains and belt-tightening. His downsized proposals for the 2015 legislature on health care were purely incremental in nature. None will generate headlines or fuel a grassroots movement.

The governor’s gonna have to pull a rabbit out of a hat somewhere to restart his political career. And his biggest hat is now empty.

Of course the right wing is still Grubering

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Yesterday, I wrote about Neal Goswami’s journalistic self-sacrifice — reading 2,400 pages of government emails so we don’t have to. The emails in question were between the newly-notorious Jonathan Gruber and various Shumlin administration functionaries. And Goswami found a conspicuous absence of scandal. Indeed, the emails painted a picture of some very dedicated people working very hard to devise the best possible single-payer system.

Naturally, though, the lack of scandal hasn’t stopped the right wing from desperately fanning the Gruber flames. This is not at all surprising; in fact, it’s the right wing’s modus operandi. Talking Points Memo:

Gruber-mania has gripped the conservative mediasphere in a way that few stories have, becoming another brand-name controversy like Benghazi and the IRS. An academic who had been little known outside of Washington or Boston has been mentioned nearly 2,800 times in English-language news since news of the most recent video broke last month. Prior to that, across a career that spanned decades and after playing an important role in Massachusetts and national health care reform, he’d been named less than 1,000 times, according to a TPM LexisNexis search.

The lesser members of the mediasphere who operate in this lonely outpost are taking their cues from their big brothers, and trying to make mountains out of molehills.

Take Rob Roper, the Eddie Haskell of Vermont conservatism. He pulled out one brief excerpt from Goswami’s report, which I’d cited as a positive. Key quote from Gruber:

I am really excited to work with you all — I think we have the chance to really make history here.

In Roper’s imagination, this statement immediately disqualifies Gruber. He’s too enthusiastic, see?

So would Gruber mislead Vermont voters because he’d rather make history than not? With over $2 billion at stake, we have to assume the answer is yes.

One little evidence-free assumption, and we can dismiss the entirety of Gruber’s work. Plus any proposal Gov. Shumlin makes because, even if he fired Gruber today, all the work on single-payer has already been thoroughly Grubered.

This is exactly the same rationale used by the far right for ignoring climate science: the scientists have a stake in climate change, so their work can be dismissed.

Look, it’s only natural that an expert would have a lively engagement in her/his field of study. Aren’t you interested in what you do? I hope so. But the academic world — unlike the world of conservative faux-outrage — has ethical standards and principles. Academics have an interest in doing honest work, to ensure that their work has an impact. And, of course, academics who commit fraud see their careers end in shame.

But the Rob Ropers of the world know nothing of this, because their purpose is rousing the rabble. Adhering to the truth is a professional impediment. And fraud is a tried and true method of career advancement.

And that, by the way, is it: The only thing Roper could find in Goswami’s story to yammer about is Gruber’s enthusiasm for his work.

Meanwhile, serial failure Darcie “Hack” Johnston has been busily retweeting stuff from Breitbart.com, one of the sleazier outposts of the conservative mediasphere. For some reason, Breitbart has posted a series of stories about Gruber’s work in Vermont. Seems like small potatoes for a national website, but whatevs.

Johnston is so far out there, she seems to believe that Breitbart is a convincing source of news. In fact, the guy who’s writing its Vermont stories is a proud Tea Partier with no journalistic credentials outside the conservative mediasphere.

But again, I’m not surprised. This is SOP for Johnston: Accept (and broadcast) every conservative source, no matter how shameless, as the Gospel truth.

When, in fact, “truth” has nothing to do with it.

No smoking guns in the Gruber file

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Now I know how Neal Goswami’s been spending his spare time lately:

The Vermont Press Bureau obtained nearly 2,400 pages of emails between Jonathan Gruber and state officials that detail the work Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economist, has been doing for the administration.

Woof. That’s a lot of emails to wade through. The result of all that work was published in the Sunday edition of the Mitchell Family Organ. (The article is paywalled; if you don’t subscribe, Get Thee To A Library.)

So what did he find? More impolitic comments about stupid voters and conservative pundits? Arrogant pronouncements over how he’s gonna pull the wool over our eyes?

Er, no.

Emails… highlight the administration’s work since the summer preparing a long-awaited financing plan for Gov. Peter Shumlin’s proposed universal, publicly financed health care plan.

… In a July 7 email to Michael Costa, Shumlin’s deputy director of health reform and the tax expert spearheading the administration’s financing plan, Gruber expressed unbridled enthusiasm at the opportunity to help the state craft a single-payer health care plan.

In short, the emails depict a top-shelf policy expert avidly engaged in a very difficult project, and using his economic model to test countless iterations of single-payer.

And seeing Vermont as a ground-breaking opportunity: “I think we have a chance to make history here,” he said in a July email.

Goswami describes a lengthy, painstaking process that seems to validate Gov. Shumlin’s claims that he couldn’t release his plan because it wasn’t ready yet. This was, the emails show, a long, tough slog. Which still continues; reform chief Robin Lunge expressed confidence that the plan would be ready by late December, but only after an all-out effort.

It’s a fascinating read if you’re a policy wonk. But it doesn’t provide provide any new evidence for legitimate attacks on Gruber or single-payer.

Which is not to say there’s no room for illegitimate, partisan attacks:

Many emails that included details of the administration’s plan were redacted, with the administration citing executive privilege.

“Aha!”, I can almost hear Darcie Johnston crying. “Redacted! Cover-up!”

Partisans will certainly look at it that way. Especially since, according to Goswami, the Shumlin administration had an interesting rationale for adding a provision to Gruber’s contract stating that he “may advise the Governor on policy matters.”

That provision was added, not because Gruber would actually provide any policy advice, but simply to lay the foundation for a claim of executive privilege.

Lunge… said the clause in the contract was included to protect her policy advice to the governor. Gruber has not contributed policy advice to the governor, according to Lunge.

Got that? Lunge generated policy ideas… Gruber ran them through his model… and Lunge used his information to shape her policy ideas. But since she had to give her policy ideas to Gruber, his work must be privileged.

It makes sense, but it also provides fertile ground for conspiracy theories.

And it creates some concerns about government transparency: Lunge told Goswami that “the same provision is also included with other contractors.”

If that’s true, then we ought to be less worried about Jonathan Gruber and single-payer, and more worried about broadening claims of executive privilege.

Shumlin’s Newsdump-a-palooza rolls on

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If you regularly read this page, you don’t need to be reminded what a newsdump is. But just in case: it’s the popular maneuver of unloading bad news when the media and the public are least likely to notice. Friday afternoons are the most common times. The final working day before a holiday weekend is ideal.

The Shumlin administration has been making a habit of this lately, and now there are two more newsdumps on the horizon. The first, regarding budget cuts, and the second, Shumlin’s long-awaited big reveal on single-payer health care.

The administration hit a two-fer on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, ensuring minimal and shallow coverage of its planned $17 million in budget rescissions, and little to no coverage of its plan to make two-thirds of the cuts in Human Services, an agency already said to be underfunded and understaffed.

Shumlin.NewsdumpWell, there’s a sequel to the rescission newsdump. All affected agencies are supposed to submit their proposed cuts by December 5. Hey, what do you know — it’s a Friday!

This should ensure that news about specific cuts will leak out slowly. Or, will perhaps be dumped all at once in a news release issued around 5 p.m. Friday.

It’s also worth noting that the administration gave its agencies less than one business week to make these tough decisions. Its call was issued on Thanksgiving Eve, which meant that the work couldn’t commence in earnest until Monday, December 1.

But wait, you might be thinking. Didn’t the Administration decide not to pursue immediate cuts?

That’s right. Rather than risk a confrontation with the Legislature, it opted to hold off on rescissions until January.

However, the December 5 deadline remains in effect. So state agencies are being rushed into critical budget decisions, even though no action will be taken until more than a month later.

Curious. Methinks the administration might get an early start on those cuts, despite its abnegation of unilateral action.

As for the second newsdump… the Governor announced Wednesday that he would unveil the proposed benefits offered by a single-payer health care system by mid-December, and that his financing plan — the real bone of contention — will come out on December 29 or 30.

What, does he have plans for New Year’s Eve? Or would that be just too damn obvious?

Well, I guess it was too damn obvious anyway. Paul Heintz:

…he swears he’s not trying to bury the news in the lull of the holiday season.

“That’s exactly why I wanted to give you the date now,” Shumlin said during a wide-ranging discussion with reporters at Burlington’s Hotel Vermont. “Because I didn’t want to wake up on December 31 and [read], ‘It was a late-night news dump.'”

So I guess I’m helping out by labeling it a newsdump well before New Year’s Eve Morning. Wouldn’t want to spoil the last cappucino of 2014. (Or maybe I shouldn’t assume he drinks Gucci coffee. Folger’s?)

He claims that he wants to get the plan out early to “get it to the legislators before they’re sworn in.” But the specificity, to use a grand old Watergate word, is a little strange. His team, he says, “is working really hard to get this together.” A task involving that much intensive work with a bunch of people would seem, by its nature, to be somewhat open-ended. And the Governor has particularly avoided deadlines in the health care reform process because so many have been flouted in the past.

And yet he can predict, with certainty, that it will all come together on the 29th or 30th.

Somehow I doubt an extra week or so, including a long holiday weekend, will make a whole lot of difference for lawmakers. If the early release isn’t a newsdump, it will certainly have the effect of one: limiting coverage and blunting immediate reaction to the plan, allowing the Administration to prepare counter-arguments and perhaps even refine the plan before it’s formally submitted.

To me, it looks like a newsdump, walks like a newsdump, and quacks like a newsdump.

Vermont Republicans adopt the Fox News playbook

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I don’t know what the hell has happened to Vermont Republicans. With a couple of exceptions (Phil Scott, Kevin Mullin), they seem to have gone batshit crazy.

And crazy in a very particular way. They have taken up the chief weaponry of national Republicans and the Fox News crowd by distilling a complicated issue to a single word.

The issue is health care and the word, of course, is GRUBER!!!!!!

Republicans have not been deterred in the last by Gov. Shumlin’s renegotiation of Gruber’s contract, cutting off further payments to Gruber and thus saving the state $120,000 — some of which will go to independent checking of Gruber’s work.

But it doesn’t matter, at least not to Republicans. They’ve decided “Gruber” is an all-purpose cudgel to attack Shumlin, the Democrats, and the cause of health care reform. Their entire health care focus is on Gruber.

It was only a couple weeks ago that the VTGOP had a big post-election news conference to call for repeal of Vermont Health Connect. We don’t hear that anymore; it’s all Gruber, all the time.

It’s the first time I can remember that virtually every notable Republican and conservative activist seems to be singing from the same hymnal. Kurt Wright sounds just like Rob Roper, and Heidi Scheuermann’s doing her best Darcie Johnston.

This fact hit home for me while reading Rep. Wright’s opinion piece in the Sunday Freeploid. Wright asserts that Gruber’s work on single-payer “will undermine the entire process and debate going forward.” When there’s no evidence that Gruber has done anything more than provide top-flight economic modeling. No matter; as ACORN allegedly poisoned the electoral process and Lois Lerner allegedly proved an Obama conspiracy against the right, the mere presence of Gruber fundamentally undercuts everything about single-payer.

So I guess, by Wright’s logic, we have to throw out all the work that’s been done on single-payer over the last three years and start over? Or is he arguing that by axing Gruber now, when the work is virtually complete, the entire process will be purified as if by cleansing flame?

Wright’s words are identical in meaning to Rob Roper’s. Over at his Koch-funded nonprofit, the Ethan Allen Institute, he claims that Gruber’s entire body of work is useless and cannot be used at all. And Darcie “Hack” Johnston, Tweeting out her policy stances, pronounes Gruber’s work is “tainted” and…

Just watch him, Darcie.

Meanwhile, Sen. Joe Benning is clearly intoxicated by his sudden Fox News fame, referring on his Facebook page to Gruber as “the gift that keeps on giving.” Which sounds disconcertingly like naked political opportunism. He goes on to brag that “FOX wants me back!”

Of course they want you back, Joe: you fit right in with their agenda. And I don’t mean that as a compliment.

On another front, House Republicans have filed a public-records request for Gruber’s work for the state and for communications between Gruber and the Shumlin Administration, I’d applaud them for trying to learn the truth, but given all their public remarks, it seems more like a Darrell Issa-type fishing expedition. What they’re really hoping for is more Gruberisms.

And then there’s the proto-Republicans at Campaign for Vermont, still flogging their online petition calling for Gruber’s firing. Too bad that since Shumlin’s termination of payment, CFV’s petition has pretty much stalled out. As of this writing, it’s at 233 signatures, and it’s been in the low 200s for several days now.

This isn’t about the truth. It’s about using a handful of remarks by Jonathan Gruber to try to undermine the push for single-payer health care.

The weird thing about this is, we just went through an election that provided two object lessons (Phil Scott and Scott Milne) in how Republicans can win in Vermont: by presenting a moderate, inclusive image. Now they’re all foaming at the mouth as though the election never happened and “Angry Jack” Lindley is still running the joint.

They would be well advised to rein in their inflammatory rhetoric lest they alienate the very voters they just managed to attract.

How to dismantle an atomic bomb, Shummy style

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Tweet O’ The Day, Vermont Division:

ICYMI, Grubermania hit flood stage today, with the Pitchfork Brigade growing ever louder and — so we hear — Fox News prowling the halls of the Statehouse. (BTW, congrats to Sen. Joe Benning for scoring a primetime Fox appearance out of all this. When life gives you lemons, squirt ’em in your enemy’s eye.)

But the rising waters, laden with political opportunity, almost immediately washed away after Gov. Shumlin dynamited the logjam. Health care reform chief Lawrence Miller:

“…we need solid economic modeling in order to move forward with health care reform. I have told Mr. Gruber that I expect his team to complete the work that we need to provide the legislature and Vermonters with a public health care financing plan. I’ve informed Mr. Gruber that we will not be paying him any further for his part in completing that work.”

A cleverly-worded statement that took a little decoding: Gruber won’t get paid any more for grubering the gruber, but his minions will. And considering that (1) the contract with Vermont expires in three months, (2) the renowned Gruber model is well-entrenched by now, (3) Gruber’s got so many contracts (and so many bigger fish to fry), that Vermont is a drop in his bucket, and (4) I bet the staff’s been doing most of the work anyway… well, I don’t imagine this is much skin off Gruber’s nose.

For Shumlin, it allows the continued use of the Gruber model to finish work on his single-payer plan while also lancing a troublesome political boil. He’s always been at his best in crisis.

We probably should have seen this coming, what with the complete silence from legislative Democrats. Really, did a single Democrat call for Gruber’s firing? I don’t recall any. They must have known that a bacon-saving solution was around the corner.

And what’s that I hear in the distance? Methinks it’s the sound of Fox News’ mobile unit getting outta Montpelier as fast as it can. Nothing to see here, folks.

I’m sure the Republicans will find ways to tend the flame of Grubermania… but from now on, it’ll be more like a votive candle than a bonfire. A votive candile lit in memory of an all-too-brief political opportunity.

Ah, Grubermania, we hardly knew ye.

Phil Scott #2016 rumbles out of Pit Road

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In my previous post, I noted a report of some uncharacteristically aggressive remarks by Lt. Gov. Phil Scott. As it happens, Mr. Nice Guy did a brief radio interview this morning on WCVR, “Real Country 1320 AM” in Randolph,”playing all your favorites from yesterday and today!”

Well, maybe not my favorites. I doubt their playlist includes King Crimson or Talking Heads (yesterday) or Arcade Fire or Cold Specks or Godspeed! You Black Emperor (today), but I know what they mean.

Morning deejay Ray Kimball took a few minutes from spinnin’ the tunes to talk with Our Lieutenant Governor. And thanks to Real Country’s livestream, I could listen from my snowed-in central Vermont hilltop redoubt.

Hey Vermont, need a lift?

Hey Vermont, need a lift?

I must say, Phil Scott was on his game, combining his customary aw-shucks charm with some well-crafted jabs at the (unnamed) Democrats.

It wasn’t much of an interview, maybe five minutes. And as an interviewer, Ray Kimball is a darn fine deejay. But it gave me a sense that Mr. Nice Guy will be a very dangerous candidate in 2016 if he wants to be. And, for the first time in his career, he’s showing signs that he does indeed want to be. I guess we shouldn’t have doubted the competitive fire of a man whose third profession is auto racing.

Ol’ Ray started by mentioning the expected presence of Fox News, which is apparently nosing around the Statehouse looking for fuel for its festive Jonathan Gruber stake-burning. Initially, Scott didn’t take the bait, instead pivoting to Governor Shumlin’s overdue rollout of a single-payer health care plan. And, in his customarily genial tones, he delivered a fist-in-a-velvet glove shot at Gov. Shumlin.

I’m looking forward to the Governor presenting his plan as he was supposed to do quite some time ago, as was named in the law itself. He’s missed a couple of deadlines. I don’t want there to be any excuses, I want to hear what this financing plan is, what this single-payer looks like, so we can make a decision as to whether it works for Vermont or it doesn’t. And if it doesn’t, I want to move on. The uncertainty it’s created in Vermont just having this discussion, I think has had a negative effect on our economy. So I want to get this over and done, and then move on from there.

Nicely done, sir. Slam the Governor for missing deadlines, assert that the “uncertainty” has hurt Vermont’s economy*, but leave the door open, barely, for consideration of single-payer.

*Please stop with the uncertainty bullshit. Truth is, life itself is uncertain. Businesspeople face far bigger and more pressing uncertainties every damn day. Single-payer, if it happens, is three years away. How much other uncertainty will be packed into those years? 

Ray-Ray then asked a garbled follow-up, and that’s when Scott pivoted back to Jonathan Gruber’s videotaped comments, delivering a skillful punch in his unthreatening way.

His comments were made about Obamacare, but it does bring to light some, ah, you know, you might question some of the tactics and some of the things he’s said, in terms of trying to manipulate the public and perception, so I think some of his, ah, some of his data might be questionable.

Aha. Laying the groundwork for disbelieving the Governor’s plan while maintaining the facade of open-mindedness. He didn’t even call for Gruber’s head on a plate; he just undermined Gruber’s work.

Then Kimball asked about the budget. Scott took that ball and ran with it.

I know we can’t continue to look back, but I look back a few years as, uh, as to when Governor Douglas vetoed the budget…

Let’s stop for a moment and note the contradiction there: we can’t look back, but I’m looking back. Okay, Phil, continue.

… when Governor Douglas vetoed the budget, said it was unsustainable in the future, and it turns out he was right. We, uh, the Legislature overrode his veto and put that into place, and I think that’s where it started. And I think we’re living, ah, beyond our means. We’re spending, we, ah, we’re spending more money than we’re receiving. Revenues are down. So we’ve had to make corrections, and we’re going to have to tighten our belts, and it’s going to take all of us to determine how we’re going to do that, because we can’t spend more than we’re taking in.

Well played! Referring to the halcyon days of Jim Douglas, blaming the Democrats and Gov. Shumlin without naming them, couching harsh criticism in kitchen-table terms, and even calling for bipartisanship while, at the same time, trumpeting Republican orthodoxy. Ingenious.

There have been persistent doubts that Phil Scott has the fire in the belly, that he’d most likely stay within his comfort zone as Mr. Nice Guy, Lieutenant Governor For Life. It’s very early, but I suspect we can lay those doubts to rest.

Phil Scott exits 2014 with over $100,000 in campaign cash, and he’s proven he can be a big-time fundraiser within the humble boundaries of Vermont. If he can mount a credible campaign, and I think it’s clear he can, he’ll start drawing some outside money as well. He is developing a solid message, combining Jim Douglas-style plausible moderation with skillfully coded shout-outs to the True Believers.

If he wants the 2016 gubernatorial nomination, he’ll have it. And he will be the most formidable Republican candidate since Jim Douglas left the scene.

Hell, at this rate, he might turn out to be better than Jim Douglas.

Postscript. This was a brief interview, but a couple of items were notable by their absence. The name “Scott Milne” was not mentioned. And there was no talk of repealing Vermont Health Connect which, if I recall correctly, was the Republicans’ clarion call less than two weeks ago.