VBSR and VSJF Press Conference

Businesses Need Health Care Reform

Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility is disappointed in Wednesday’s announcement that the Governor and his administration is abandoning a health care financing plan for “the foreseeable future.” We would have preferred that the Governor release a menu of financing options and used his position to facilitate a debate about the challenges and opportunities for fixing the current broken financing system for health care. As the Governor acknowledged in his opening remarks, health care costs and the unresolved cost shift, threaten to overwhelm our economy.

VBSR has spent 25 years advocating for health care reform and that work will not stop. Problems with the equity and financing of health care persist and must be addressed. Vermont’s business community needs a level-playing field in which all contribute based on ability to pay and all will benefit. We need to remove the link between insurance and employment. That will allow businesses to do what businesses do best – expand operations, create jobs, and increase the wages of hard-working Vermonters.

VBSR will continue to work for the reforms our business members and their employees need. We believe that with sufficient will and imagination, we can bend the cost curve and design a financing system that benefits Vermonters and the Vermont economy. We look forward to having that conversation and furthering the goals of health care reform in 2015.