Times change. A little over a decade ago, the home state of Sen. Bernie Sanders tried to implement a single-payer healthcare system, only to balk at the staggering cost to taxpayers. Now Vermont is bringing a measure of market-based sanity to health insurance.
Gov. Phil Scott, an old-fashioned Rockefeller Republican, issued an executive order this month to implement the most substantial healthcare reforms Vermont has seen in decades. In coming months, the state will roll back mandates that force young people to pay disproportionately high premiums, identify barriers to affordable health coverage for small businesses, and apply for a federal reinsurance program that has lowered premiums in other states. I estimate the reinsurance program alone will lower the average premiums in Vermont’s individual market by 10% to 15%, as it has in New Hampshire.
That’s what Vermonters need, because the state’s individual market for ObamaCare plans is the worst in the nation. Vermont has the highest average premiums in America—$1,299 a month for the benchmark silver plan. That’s nearly 60% more than in neighboring New York, and three times as high as in New Hampshire. Even the cheapest tier in Vermont averages $824 a month, with a nearly $10,000 deductible.
Free-Market Health Reform in Bernie Sanders’s Vermont
Times change. A little over a decade ago, the home state of Sen. Bernie Sanders tried to implement a single-payer healthcare system, only to balk at the staggering cost to taxpayers. Now Vermont is bringing a measure of market-based sanity to health insurance.
Gov. Phil Scott, an old-fashioned Rockefeller Republican, issued an executive order this month to implement the most substantial healthcare reforms Vermont has seen in decades. In coming months, the state will roll back mandates that force young people to pay disproportionately high premiums, identify barriers to affordable health coverage for small businesses, and apply for a federal reinsurance program that has lowered premiums in other states. I estimate the reinsurance program alone will lower the average premiums in Vermont’s individual market by 10% to 15%, as it has in New Hampshire.
That’s what Vermonters need, because the state’s individual market for ObamaCare plans is the worst in the nation. Vermont has the highest average premiums in America—$1,299 a month for the benchmark silver plan. That’s nearly 60% more than in neighboring New York, and three times as high as in New Hampshire. Even the cheapest tier in Vermont averages $824 a month, with a nearly $10,000 deductible.