Single Player

Quick shout out to Vermont, one of the most politically interesting places in the nation right now. They are a great reminder that federalism was baked into our political system so that the states could act where the federal government wasn’t explicitly empowered to intervene.

Since the federal government isn’t getting the job done when it comes to providing legitimate public health care, now Vermont is planning to provide its own public option to its citizens.

In such a setting, Vermont’s plan looks more and more like an anomaly. It combines universal coverage with new cost controls in an effort to move away from a system in which the more procedures doctors and hospitals perform, the more they get paid, to one in which providers have a set budget to care for a set number of patients.

The result will be healthcare that’s “a right and not a privilege,” Gov. Peter Shumlin said.

And when people can’t agree on what a basic right looks like, it makes sense to let them vote with their feet.