Doubles down on stale policies that we know don’t work.

by Rob Roper

“We can’t solve today’s problems with the same thinking that created them,” says Democrat/Progressive candidate for governor, Amanda Janoo, repeatedly in the closing arguments of her campaign. Totally agree! And it is why we should not vote for this woman. Her entire policy agenda is more of the same failed thinking that created the problems we are dealing with today.

Her flagship campaign promise is Single Payer Healthcare. Now where have we seen that same thinking before? Hmmmm…. Oh yes! 2011 to 2014 when Vermont taxpayers were forced to waste how many millions of dollars on consultants and studies and years of legislative distraction to arrive at the obvious conclusion that this progressive pipe dream was way too expensive and complicated to work.

Before that it was the same old thinking in 2005 with Speaker Gaye Symington’s (D) Green Mountain Care legislation, which also fizzled as politically and fiscally untenable. It led to the short-lived compromise of Catamount Care which became obsolete with the passage of Obamacare in 2014, but not before even that watered down government subsidized healthcare scheme caused major spikes health insurance premiums. A trend that hasn’t let up since, as the majority thinking really hasn’t changed.

And then more recently that same thinking led to the disaster that was OneCare. (Did they really think replacing the word “single” with “one” would make a difference — or fool anyone?) The idea behind OneCare was to shift focus away from fee for service treatment care to preventative care — much like Janoo’s same-old-thinking to start on her path to single payer with universal primary care to save money by making people healthier on the front end. Sounds nice. Didn’t work. Even Vermont’s Progressive State Auditor determined that OneCare was just an expensive, bloated bureaucracy that didn’t save any money — nor did it make anyone any healthier. (Family Feud “X” sound effect here.)

The so called “new thinking” Janoo brings to this (at least) thrice re-microwaved policy turd is kicking it off with a OneCare 2.0, “Universal Primary Care” – for which she offers no detailed plan for how it would work or, of critical importance, how it will be paid for, which is another hallmark of the same old Democrat policy thinking – as steppingstone to the ultimate goal of that same old same old, Single Payer. So, two same-old-same-old-thinking failed policies rolled together. Just brilliant.

And what has two decades plus of this kind of Janooesqe not-new thinking got us regarding healthcare? The most expensive health insurance in the nation, the most expensive prescription drug costs in the nation, a doctor shortage, and a number of rural hospitals on the brink of financial collapse. Not just doubling down, quadrupling down, on this same-old-thinking is clearly not the way to go.

And it’s not just same-old-thinking on healthcare policy. Janoo’s “tax the rich!” mantra is hardly new thinking. We’ve been at that in Vermont for over half a century, creating one of the country’s most progressive tax systems with one of the highest marginal income tax rates and, lest we forget, our most progressive property tax system. Has this tax philosophy created a booming job market in Vermont? Incentivized young people to stay here and build families and careers? Ended income inequality. The answer in every case is no. Quite the opposite. Does anybody really think dialing up the same old “tax the rich” thinking even higher is going to reverse the negative trends it created? You’d have to be an idiot not to realize it will make those trends worse faster.

If Vermonters take Janoo’s message to heart and believe that to solve today’s problems we need to break away from the thinking that created them, the thing to do is change who controls the majorities in the State House and Senate. Democrats and Progressives have controlled both chambers since 2005, and the Senate since 1996. Vermont Republicans have not controlled all three branches state government in order to pass any purely GOP law (or even a moderately GOP law) since the mid 1980s. Democrat/Progressive policy thinking has been driving our ship of state for close to half a century.

Will Janoo and another Democrat/Progressive trifecta and/or supermajority fundamentally change the state’s approach to our unaffordable and failing public education system? No. Or how we deal with the exploding homeless problem? No. Housing? No. Strategies for incentivizing young workers to stay or come to Vermont? No. Will more Democrat/Progressive thinking turn around our flailing, floundering economy. It will not.

So, as election day approaches, give Vermont Republicans a chance. For an actual change. For actual new thinking, and new approaches to problem solving. After all, what have you got to lose? Under Democrat/Progressive rule, 64 percent of you 18-34 year-olds were planning to leave the state anyway. So, to quote the dad from Risky Business, “Sometimes you’ve gotta say what the heck.”

Rob Roper is a freelance writer who has been involved with Vermont politics and policy for over 20 years. This article reprinted with permission from Behind the Lines: Rob Roper on Vermont Politics, robertroper.substack.com