Letters to the Editor

Author: [no author name found]

To the Editor:

Hiding under the meaningless "not-for-profit" label, 12 home health agencies have carved the state into separate service territories and agree not to compete with one another. Together, they endlessly lobby the Vermont Legislature and state regulators to make sure persons with Medicare and Medicaid - taxpayer funded insurances - have no other home health agency to call upon when they are ill. State regulators ask no meaningful questions and the agencies actively campaign against legislators who promote consumer choice and competition - which all other states embrace as a means of ensuring quality and lowering charges.

Here's the hard truth on Vermont's home health agencies' claim of having the "lowest cost" in the nation. It means the monopoly's INTERNAL costs of providing home care are the lowest in the nation. It has nothing to do with the agencies bill or the reimbursement they receive. In fact, Vermont's home health monopoly has the highest profit margin on Medicare today, and is also paid the highest Medicaid home care reimbursement in the nation. As for private insurance, because Vermont allows a monopoly to control this $100 million annual market, private insurance is forced to pay about 25 percent more than it does in states where there is home health competition.

The bigger question is this: Who are the people in the Vermont state government who put a monopoly's interests above those of homebound seniors and taxpayers all these years? Perhaps the Department of Justice will get us some well-deserved answers and give us all a choice at last.

Sincerely,
Megan Price
Shelburne, VT



To the Editor:
Having taken Jon Isham's inspiring J-term class, Social Movements and Climate Change, I wanted to add to the article in the last issue of The Middlebury Campus about the "tropical weather" this winter. Perhaps you've heard or felt the buzz going around about Jon's class and the 25 new and energized activists it has created. Why are we so charged about this issue? Because while the government and media still question whether climate change is in fact occurring, the scientific community and a vast network of dedicated activists, socially responsible businesses students, and religious leaders are waving their arms frantically, hoping to attract the attention of the United States before it's too late. Despite the apparent controversy in politics and the media over climate change, the science isn't in question. And the most significant findings are telling us we don't have much time.

According to the science, stabilizing our climate will require a 70 percent reduction of carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2020. In Vermont, climate change means shortened winters, a significant decrease in snowfall and the eventual disappearance of maple syrup production. Globally it means rising sea levels, disturbed and increasingly violent weather patterns and massive famines. Not just flip-flops in winter.

In beginning to understand the urgency and scale of the climate crisis, students on campus have mobilized to bring several organizations together around this issue. As the group is not a formal organization, but a group of concerned students, it encourages any student, faculty, or administrator to attend. The group meets Sundays from 9 to 11 p.m. in

Chateau Grand Salon.
Kelly Blynn '07