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erronis

(16,762 posts)
Wed Nov 6, 2024, 08:42 AM Wednesday

In Vermont, Where Almost Everyone Has Insurance, Many Can't Find or Afford Care

https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/vermont-low-uninsured-rate-high-costs-long-waits/

On a warm autumn morning, Roger Brown walked through a grove of towering trees whose sap fuels his maple syrup business. He was checking for damage after recent flooding. But these days, his workers’ health worries him more than his trees’.

The cost of Slopeside Syrup’s employee health insurance premiums spiked 24% this year. Next year it will rise 14%.

The jumps mean less money to pay workers, and expensive insurance coverage that doesn’t ensure employees can get care, Brown said. “Vermont is seen as the most progressive state, so how is health care here so screwed up?”

Vermont consistently ranks among the healthiest states, and its unemployment and uninsured rates are among the lowest. Yet Vermonters pay the highest prices nationwide for individual health coverage, and state reports show its providers and insurers are in financial trouble. Nine of the state’s 14 hospitals are losing money, and the state’s largest insurer is struggling to remain solvent. Long waits for care have become increasingly common, according to state reports and interviews with residents and industry officials.
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In Vermont, Where Almost Everyone Has Insurance, Many Can't Find or Afford Care (Original Post) erronis Wednesday OP
I am not a native Vermonter... GiqueCee Wednesday #1

GiqueCee

(1,299 posts)
1. I am not a native Vermonter...
Wed Nov 6, 2024, 09:02 AM
Wednesday

... but I got here as fast as I could (48 years ago), and I've been a patient with the same primary clinic for 38 years. But I know people who cannot get care because most practices won't take on any new patients.
The putrid stench of private equity pervades the healthcare landscape nationwide, and the Green Mountain State is not immune. Those people – and I use the term loosely – adopted their business model from the Mafia, and they're no different than those they chose to imitate; they just have better tailors, and employ lawyers instead of leg breakers.

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