Isn’t healthcare reform grand?
Via Watchdog
For two years, Gov. Peter Shumlin has concealed his plans for financing single-payer health care. His lead consultant, Jonathan Gruber, has admitted to deceptive policymaking and called lack of transparency “a huge political advantage.”
But at least one man knows what Vermonters can expect to pay for Green Mountain Care and isn’t afraid to tell.
Peter Galbraith, a former U.S. ambassador and two-term Democratic state senator from Windham County, holds the distinction of being the only lawmaker to have put forward a plan for financing Act 48, Vermont’s publicly financed health care program.
Although his bill never became law, the senator has a clear picture of what Vermonters can expect when Shumlin reveals his single-payer financing plan in January — a plan that will attempt to lay a $2.2 billion tax on the backs of about 630,000 Vermonters.
“If you do it on the sales tax, it would require a sales tax of 30 percent. If you do it on the income tax, you would have the bottom rate be 15 percent and the top rate be 30 percent. That would make the top effective tax rate in the state of Vermont about 73 percent,” Galbraith told Vermont Watchdog.