Who to thank for single payer in Vermont? Vermonters.

[Wounded Bear]

23. First off, kudos to VT for leading on this...

I've long thought that the ACA would open up the possibility that the states would move to single payer systems on their own.

The timing suggests that ACA may have provided some additional impetus for the VT measure, but I know that this has been growing in several states for a long time. CA nearly passed a SP measure a few years back, but it was torpedoed by Swartzie and there weren't enough votes to override. Hawaii has had a form of UHC working for a while. My nephew lives there and has had to avail himself of it.

Here in WA, our exchange is working pretty well and people are getting coverage-over 60,000, at last count IIRC, have policies in the pipeline. Far more have received Medicaid.

The fact that Repubs don't want people to know is that states that actually worked on this are getting their citizens access to healthcare, while red states are lagging behind. I suspect they won't be able to keep the lid on this for much longer.

The ACA is deeply flawed, but if more states can follow VT's lead and start up SP systems, the snowball effect will override everything else, even corporate intransigence.