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Vital Signs: Vermont Charts A New Course For Health Care
Representative Dr. George Till recently sent out a survey to all licensed physicians in the state of Vermont to get their views on a variety of health care issues, including the possibility of a single-payer health care system in the state.
The on-line questionnaire was not conducted by a professional polling service, but Dr. Till trusted that only doctors would respond to the survey, since it was only their opinions he was seeking, and the survey was specifically for doctors to fill out. It was also understood that the anonymous survey was to be filled out only once by each respondent.
But that’s not what happened. Apparently, some people found a way around the safeguards and responded multiple times, and two Democratic lawmakers in Montpelier who are not licensed physicians admitted that they took part in the survey.
One of those was Representative Mike Fisher, who’s also the Vice Chairman of the Health Care Committee, and is a proponent of single-payer. Dr. Till says he supports single-payer in theory, but says it won’t work in Vermont for practical reasons.
Representative Fisher, tells VPR’s Mitch Wertlieb he didn’t have an agenda in mind when he responded to the survey.
Click listen to hear the interview.