This wouldn’t save Vermonters money. For one thing, the plan mandated not gold-plated insurance but platinum-plated – it mandated an “actuarial value” of 94%, meaning that patients would cover only 6% of the cost of their care. This is a certain formula for patients and providers paying no attention of cost and value. It instead would have tried to control costs by imposing punitively low payment rates on providers. The federal government tries this now with its single-payer system for the poor, Medicaid, leading to shortages of doctors who will accept Medicaid patients.
Worse, it shifted the costs in ways taxpayers would see as unjust. Even liberal media observers admit this. “The proposed taxes would ask higher earners to spend more on health care than they do now — in some cases, far more,” noted the website Vox, which also pointed out that an 11.5% payroll tax hits high-wage payrolls much harder than low-wage ones. And remember where the burden of payroll taxes falls: On workers’ wages. Don’t believe me? Ask Jonathan Gruber.
It was all too much for Vermont to afford.
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