Health Care

Remember when you could choose to go to any doctor, pay a reasonable fee for your medical service, and not worry about co-pays, deductibles, and some distant stranger authorizing or denying the care prescribed by your physician?

As the Clinton administration departed Washington and George W. Bush moved in, health care reform measures attracted some much-needed public policy attention.

Calvin Coolidge once said, “Laws do not make reforms, reforms make laws. We cannot look to government. We must look to ourselves.” He easily could have been talking about health care reform in Vermont.

The United States does not have a properly functioning market for health care, and the financing system needs to be reformed. The market is distorted by a tax policy that is mistargeted, miscalibrated, and open-ended.

The Food and Drug Administration has issued a final rule to address the labeling and marketing of dietary supplements. Many health advocates are distressed about some of its content.

“The votes tell the story. On June 2, 1988, the House passed the Catastrophic Health Care Act 328-72. On Wednesday [October 4, 1989], the House voted to repeal it 360-66. Rep.