Equitable Financing Plan for Vermont’s Universal Healthcare System

In 2015, the Healthcare Is a Human Right (HCHR) Campaign first published a financing plan for Green Mountain Care, the universal, publicly financed healthcare system set forth by Vermont’s State Legislature in Act 48.

We prepared this plan to demonstrate that Vermont would greatly benefit from universal health care funded by progressive taxes, and to counteract a false narrative that Vermont can’t afford universal healthcare.

In the years since, we have witnessed mounting evidence of the unaffordability of Vermont’s current privatized, multi-payer healthcare system for enormous numbers of residents.

Some 182,000 Vermont residents (one in three adults under 65) are underinsured, and cost barriers force over 50,000 people to delay or skip medical care every year. Residents and employers are straining under ever-higher premiums and deductibles, hospitals are closing unprofitable programs despite communities’ medical needs, and UVM Health Network has amassed undemocratic power to determine prices, staffing, and other key healthcare decisions.

In July 2020, the Vermont Workers’ Center and Partners for Dignity and Rights re-released this financing plan to demonstrate that financing Green Mountain Care (GMC) is both feasible and necessary.

We strongly urge Governor Scott and the Vermont State Legislature to fulfill their obligations under Act 48 and finance Green Mountain Care, beginning by passing legislation to require the Agency of Human Services and Green Mountain Care Board to produce new and up-to-date financing and benefit plans.