Lebanon, New Hampshire - April 15, 2011
Gov. Peter Shumlin went to New Hampshire Friday to reassure doctors at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center about his single-payer health care plan for Vermont.
Shumlin spoke to dozens of health care providers. He addressed several of the unknowns surrounding single-payer health care, including the issue of reimbursements for hospitals and doctors.
Many are already feeling the pinch from reduced Medicaid and Medicare payments from the government.
"Primary care provides a bankruptcy plan for survival. The problem is not that our primary care providers are making too much money. Our problem is they're not making enough money and they're spending too much time not being able to deliver care. So that's a very central part of our design system," said Shumlin, D-Vermont.
The governor acknowledged that many details still need to be worked out, including how a potential payroll tax to fund the system would work for folks who live in Vermont but work out of state, like many of the folks at Dartmouth-Hitchcock. The hospital employs 2,300 Vermonters and about 40 percent of its patients come from Vermont.
Bridget Barry Caswell - WCAX News
