Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin announced Wednesday that he was dropping plans for a government-provided health insurance system in the state, citing the measure’s cost.
The decision comes three years after Shumlin, a Democrat, signed into law legislation that paved the path for a single payer health system, called Green Mountain Care, by 2017. Under the law, state officials needed to come up with a financing plan by this year.
But Shumlin missed two deadlines for developing a financing plan before determining this week that paying for Green Mountain Care would have required drastic tax increases. According to the governor’s financial models, financing the system would have required an 11.5 percent payroll tax on all businesses in Vermont and a sliding-scale, income-based premium assessment of up to 9.5 percent.
“These are simply not tax rates that I can responsibly support or urge the Legislature to pass,” Shumlin said in a statement. “In my judgment, the potential economic disruption and risks would be too great to small businesses, working families and the state’s economy.”
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