Most of our greatest presidents have had either legislative experience first, either in state or federal legislatures, and later perhaps, executive experience, and then became preisdents. All of the founding fathers who were presidents were legisltoris in colonial legislatures.
Dean as been describes a a strutting, dicatorial little Napolean, not by the Reublicans, but other elected Democrats of Vermont. It is well known that Democrats referred to Dean as a Napolean in Drag. A Democratic Party remade in Deans political image would certainly become more conseravative, and even more, cause enormous gridlock in Washington.
THe president must furst be able to compppromise, on issues, not completely insisting that he get Everything he wants".
Even now, Dean already threatesn to veto budgets in order to keep a balanced budget, which is sheer folly.
Howard Dean in Wall Street Journal
Howard Dean writes in The Wall Street Journal:
The economy is going through tough times. The average American family is in trouble. The economy has been losing good jobs, and the benefits that went with them, at an astonishing rate.
To keep spending in line, I will not be afraid to use the veto — a power President Bush has yet to exercise.
http://stareat.us/eric/archives/000335.htmlA balanced budget is not the ONLY way to keep the governoment runniing, and in times when people are short of jobs, it is completely insane. There are times when even businesses run a defit by borrowing more than they have in assets in order to ensure future gains. Dean monomania regarding blaanced budgets in Vermont frequently cand at the expense of harm to individuals.
NO economist would state that a policy of keeping a balanced budget at all times is SOUND FISCAL POLICY. It is hoverever conservative fiscal policy.
Dean’s veto prods Senate back to work
June 24, 2002
By TRACY SCHMALER Vermont Press Bureau
MONTPELIER — The session that wouldn’t end isn’t over yet.
Lawmakers will return to the State House next week to respond to Gov. Howard Dean’s decision to veto a bill regulating the possession of abandoned vehicles, Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin, D-Windham, said Wednesday.
http://timesargus.com/Legislature/Story/48951.htmlSenate adds money to budget, angers Dean
May 9, 2002
By ROSS SNEYD The Associated Press
MONTPELIER — Senators passed a 2003 state budget Wednesday that the governor made clear he would veto if it ever reached his desk.
http://timesargus.com/Legislature/Story/46513.htmlSenate passes Champion land bill
February 6, 2002
By DAVID MACE
Vermont Press Bureau
MONTPELIER — The Vermont Senate has passed a bill that reaffirms the right to hunt, fish, and do other recreational activities on the state’s portion of the former Champion lands.
Shumlin had originally proposed giving lawmakers the final say in any land management plan. But Gov. Howard Dean threatened to veto a bill that contained such a provision and it was dropped.
http://timesargus.nybor.com/Legislature/Story/41993.htmlSenate tackles medicinal marijuana issue
March 19, 2002
By TRACY SCHMALER Vermont Press Bureau
MONTPELIER — The sleeper issue of the session may find permanent slumber in the Senate if opponents of medicinal marijuana, including Gov. Howard Dean, get their way.
Dean strongly opposes the bill. He has called it a move to circumvent the federal regulatory process and legalize marijuana. The Democratic governor has been evasive about whether he’d veto the bill if it makes its way to his desk.
http://timesargus.nybor.com/Story/44219.htmlMedical marijuana clears Senate hurdle, but time is running out
April 25, 2002
By DAVID MACE Vermont Press Bureau
But the bill, which passed the Vermont House with bipartisan support, faces two huge obstacles. The first is time; the second is Gov. Howard Dean.
Dean is a staunch opponent of medical marijuana, which he’s has characterized as a backdoor effort to legalize pot, and as the Democratic governor explores a possible presidential run that stance is unlikely to change.
But because the gay community — which supports medical marijuana for its use by AIDS patients — is a group that Dean has won points with for signing the landmark civil unions bill granting same-sex couples marriage rights, he would prefer not to be forced to veto such a bill.
http://rutlandherald.nybor.com/News/State/Story/45850.htmlArticle
Fast track for lottery expansion
January 29, 2003
(from the Top Story section)
By Ross Sneyd
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MONTPELIER — Lawmakers appear to be moving quickly toward expanding the state lottery so it can offer a multistate game such as Powerball as early as this summer.
Up until now, there was nearly no possibility of Vermont joining one of the two leading multistate games because former Gov. Howard Dean consistently said he would veto such a bill.
http://timesargus.nybor.com/Search/Categories/Article/59827Additional pay for lawmakers moves forward
May 13, 2002
By Tracy Schmaler
VERMONT PRESS BUREAU
MONTPELIER — There was a sign Friday that the Legislature is inching closer to adjournment.
Like the other rites of spring that signal the end is near — opening the front doors of the Statehouse and the perennial budget criticisms from Gov. Howard Dean — the appropriation to pay lawmakers for working beyond the projected adjournment date is an indicator the Legislature is in the final stretch.
It capped a week when Dean issued his annual threat to veto the budget as well as a public tongue-lashing of lawmakers for being fiscally irresponsible.
http://timesargus.com/Legislature/Story/46751.htmlBill allowing longer bar hours runs into trouble
February 22, 2001
By TRACY SCHMALER Vermont Press Bureau
MONTPELIER - Gov. Howard Dean on Wednesday promised to veto a bill that would give communities discretion in extending weekend bar hours, describing it as a "time bomb" for drunken driving.
http://www.rutlandherald.com/legislature/feb19/billallowing.htmlSenate, Dean at odds over methadone
By ROSS SNEYD The Associated Press
MONTPELIER - Senators are poised to rescue the governor's money to fight heroin at the local level, but they're on a collision course with him over treating heroin addicts.
But the budget adjustment act now pending in the Senate could face a veto over how to treat heroin addicts.
http://www.rutlandherald.com/legislature/feb12/sdatodds.htmlDean has a reputation of simply being unable to come to concensus with legislatures, frequently threateend to veto bills, than George Bush did as goveronr of Texas.
http://timesargus.nybor.com/Story/44219.htmlOne of the words most closely associaated with Howard Dean is "veto" or the term "threaten to Veto"
One of Deans Worsse Veto thread revoves around his own ideas on universal health care...
Vermont
In April 1992 Vermont passed the Vermont Health Care Act of 1992 to ensure universal coverage for state citizens, control healthcare costs via a global budget, implement insurance community rating, reform medical malpractice laws, and place the state's healthcare under one state authority. The legislation did not specify how the state would pay for and achieve universal coverage. This led to development of two state proposals--one backed by a group of 55 legislators for a single-payer plan and one pushed by the governor for an employer mandate.
Although the single-payer plan was not brought to the floor for a vote during the current 1994 session, many predicted it would have been defeated. Additionally, Gov. Howard Dean, MD, had promised to veto it if passed. Dean, the nation's only physician governor, allied with the state's medical community in pushing for reform that was not government run. As Linfield College political scientist Howard M. Leichter describes it: "When Governor Dean speaks, the views of Dr. Dean are never entirely obscured. Dean, for example, shares the distaste of his colleagues for federal micromanagement of medical practices, especially through the much-hated Medicare program."1
Dean's employer mandate bill was killed (7-0) in Vermont's Republican-dominated Senate Finance Committee in May 1994. Earlier in March, the House passed a bill without an explicit financing mechanism. This essentially puts the state's universal coverage effort at square one. Some Vermont legislators are predicting action in future sessions on an individual mandate; and the single-payer advocates have not yet given up hope.
http://www.chausa.org/PUBS/PUBSART.ASP?ISSUE=HP9410&ARTICLE=LDeans health care ideas for the United States are similar to those he proposed in Vermont, which were incremental in Nature but never came close to even providing health a care for more than a small minority of those uncovered. When Dean started trying to works towards health care in Vermont. more than 90 (90.7) percent of Vermonters had health care service, either through employment, medicare, or medicaid.
Governor's Bipartisan Commission
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Health Care Availability & Affordability
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quoted From Testimony #166
C. Access to Care Issues Under Insurance Plans
| RETURN TO THE TOP |
Given the amount of strong consumer protections already existing in Vermont regarding insurance coverage (particularly, managed care), it is difficult to identify why access and accountability is failing so seriously for all types of health care coverage, and even more difficult to imagine solutions.
The result of the degree of billing errors and impaired access has a serious effect on perceptions as a whole, because the helplessness felt in confronting it can evolve into a generalized sense of dissatisfaction with "the health care system," even if quality and cost as a whole are good.
I have the advantage of both flexible work hours and being a strong and informed self-advocate. I would estimate that one in five insurance/provider billings are incorrect. They often takes hours at a time, and a course of weeks or months of follow up, to resolve. I suspect complaint records do not accurately display anything close to the extent that consumers are inaccurately paying costs. I think there are multiple causes: bill explanations are often much too difficult, in coding, dating, and procedure identifications (to the extent they are even included), for many people to interpret; there are multiple possible sources for each error; and most people with a 9-to-5 job cannot spend several hours of work time on the phone on personal business.
I had an encounter with a hospital where I asked to have the listed billings identified. They could not identify what the service was for any given billing code or date, and offered instead that I come in and try to read through their billings files to match services, dates and insurance payments.
Some charges may be valid, but leave consumers feeling they are paying inappropriately, such as charges for a service billed under a different provider billing name. I received one such provider charge just this week which, in addition, identified the charge only as being for "services." The co-pay listed as due and owing immediately turned out to actually mean, due if full payment is not received from insurance; when I called, I was told to ignore the bill. If I had paid it instead of calling, eventually they would have had to process a refund: all paperwork for a billing amount of $4.60!
Denials for "uncovered benefits" are often hospital code errors, unknown to the consumer; insurers refuse to tell a patient even whether a denial was due to an uncovered "procedure code" or "diagnosis code," telling the patient it is confidential doctor-patient information -- but, of course, the doctor also does not know why it was denied.
I had coverage for a routine annual mammography denied because the insurer said it was not used to getting the referral approval from a primary physician rather than a specialist/gynocologist; they agreed it was an error, paid for it, and then charged me the co-pay for a specialist physician visit rather than a primary care visit.
In addition, people see the short-sightedness of computerized coverage limitations. When I was having a severe daytime somulance problem, I was going through rounds of referrals to specialists who were of different opinions on courses of treatment. This could have gone on for some time, all approved and covered by insurance. Instead, the physicians involved decided to have a four way teleconference: primary care, neurologist, sleep expert, and psychiatrist. The result was a single plan of action implemented by my primary care physician, and an end to the continuous specialty visits. The primary care physician billed for the half hour of time spent on the teleconference. Teleconferences, however, turn out to not be covered in my plan, so I had to pay $121 for the privilege of saving the system $1, 000 or more.
Recomendation: An industry task force might be the best able to assess the means of self-improvement in user-friendly documentation for billing and clearer instructions for appeals on each statement. Customer service access must include hours after 6 p.m.
http://www.state.vt.us/health/commission/testimony/166.htmIntroduction One of the most-watched measures of health care financing systems is the uninsured rate. This is the percent of the population that lacks any coverage at all for health care expenses. Although there is no “gold standard” measure of the number of uninsured in Vermont, by available measures the state has one of the lowest uninsured rates in the country.
Based on an annual survey by the Bureau of the Census, the U.S. uninsured rate has climbed from 12.9% in 1987 to a high point of 16.3% in 1998, fell to 14.0% in 2000 and rose to 14.6% in 2001. Using the same survey, Vermont’s rate is consistently below the national rate.
Vermont’s rate has fluctuated substantially, but appears to have a long-term rate of around 10%. Using a state-sponsored survey, Vermont’s rate was 11% in 1993, 6.8% in 1997, and 8.4% in 2000. Background All estimates of the percent uninsured, both in Vermont and nationally, are based on surveys. Like any survey, there is some uncertainty around these estimates.//
Several of the states with the lowest uninsured rates, including Vermont, have implemented Medicaid “1115” waivers (indicated with *)2. These waivers are intended to allow states to develop ways to expand Medicaid coverage to populations that are not normally eligible, such as working adults without children. However, some states with moderate to high uninsured rates have also received waivers, so the influence of a waiver on a state’s uninsured rate is not straightforward.
Table 23, below, shows the results of the CPS for 1987-2001 and findings of the three state surveys. Concerns have been raised about the magnitude of the difference between the state and CPS survey figures for 1997. Unfortunately, there is no way to determine which estimate is more accurate. Some health care analysts believe that the CPS underestimates the number of people on Medicaid and thus overestimates the number of uninsured.
At least one other state (Wisconsin) that does its own survey reports an uninsured rate substantially lower than the CPS estimate5. Table 2 – Estimates of the Percent
Uninsured in Vermont, 1987-2001
1987 9.8%
1988 10.7%
1989 8.8%
1990 9.5%
1991 12.7%
1992 9.5%
1993 11.9%
1994 8.6%
1995 13.0%
1996 11.0%
1997 9.5%
1998 9.9%
1999 11.1%
2000 8.6%
2001 9.6%
Several of the states with the lowest uninsured rates, including Vermont, have implemented Medicaid “1115” waivers (indicated with *)2. These waivers are intended to allow states to develop ways to expand Medicaid coverage to populations that are not normally eligible, such as working adults without children. However, some states with moderate to high uninsured rates have also received waivers, so the influence of a waiver on a state’s uninsured rate is not straightforward
State % uninsured
Rhode Island* 7.2%
Minnesota* 7.8%
Iowa 8.0%
Wisconsin* 8.5%
Pennsylvania 8.7%
Massachusetts* 8.7%
Missouri* 8.8%
New Hampshire 9.0%
Delaware* 9.5%
Nebraska 9.6%
Vermont* 9.7%
Connecticut 9.7%
Hawaii* 9.7%
Michigan 9.9%
http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:FzuHwx-xM74J:www.leg.state.vt.us/jfo/Vermont%2520Uninsured.pdf+%22Vermont%22+%27uninsured%22+%221992%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&client=REAL-tbThis study how wide variances in the unusured in Vermont while Dean was governor, with almost as many years in which Vermont came within one percent of the total uninsured in the United States, as years in which it was less than that of the U.S. Average. It also indicated that Deans ability to implement extending coverage to those who would be ineligilble under standard medicaid, was implemented by program available through the federal government, not through any special changes made by Dean as governor.
If you look at the years prior to Dean becoming governor, one observes years in which the uninsured rate was as low or lower than during Dean years as governor.
This could indicate that Deans ideas about universal health are basiscally unsound and that Dean should be more flexible and simply give up on his ideas of incremental universal health without changes to the existing system.
Such fluctuations of health care in Vermont seem to be indicative of a broken system that needs to be replaced, not retained.
Deans stubborn adhereance to it is also indicative that execuitive experiece without the prior legislative experience with the politics of flexibility and compromised that executive experience alone seems to not provide, particularly if the executive is of an inflexible nature to begin with, is not necessarily the best item in a resume for the office of president.
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