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The Middlebury Chapel at Middlebury College in Middlebury on Nov. 19, 2025. File photo by Glenn Russell\/VTDigger<\/p>\nThe Middlebury Chapel at Middlebury College in Middlebury on Nov. 19, 2025. File photo by Glenn Russell\/VTDigger<\/p>\n
About 18 months ago, Jack Mayer, Ellen Oxfeld and Michael Palmer began meeting in their local coffee shop to discuss ways that they, as concerned citizens, could improve the health care system in Vermont. They called themselves the Little Seeds, both for the Middlebury cafe where they congregated and for the movement they saw germinating.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With Town Meeting Day ahead on March 3, they are close to seeing the culmination of one of their first big efforts. At least eight Vermont Town Meeting Day agendas ask voters to urge statewide action on universal health care.<\/p>\n
The question Mayer, Oxfeld and Palmer put forth asks whether each town should call upon the Vermont Legislature to take up and vote on a bill that proposes a multi-phased implementation of universal primary care in Vermont.<\/p>\n
Brandon, Bristol, Cornwall, Middlebury, Putney, Ripton, Salisbury and Weybridge are set to consider the resolution next week. Mayer added that he is optimistic New Haven and Fairfax may also take up the issue on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The bill in question, H.433<\/a>, outlines a plan for a publicly financed health care program, Green Mountain Care. The program would begin by offering all Vermonters universal primary care and then phase in other services, like dental, vision and mental health care over a 10-year timeline.<\/p>\n Since its introduction a year ago, the bill has waited on the wall of the House Health Care Committee without receiving attention.\u00a0<\/p>\n With the internal statehouse \u201ccrossover\u201d deadline<\/a> for bills to receive approval from committees falling a mere 10 days after Town Meeting Day \u2014 and with a weeklong legislative hiatus for the local election day \u2014 it\u2019s unlikely lawmakers will take action on H.433 this legislative session, Rep. Brian Cina, P\/D-Burlington, who introduced the bill, told VTDigger.\u00a0<\/p>\n Still, he sees a vote on Town Meeting Day as a helpful \u201clitmus test\u201d on Vermonters\u2019 political will for universal health care.<\/p>\n It\u2019s more likely, he said, that the spirit of his universal health care bill may become folded into another bill with more momentum in the Legislature. Specifically, Cina pointed to S.197<\/a>, which his colleagues in the Senate Health and Welfare Committee are moving forward. That bill strives to make primary care more accessible for those with health insurance.<\/p>\n Rep. Daisy Berbeco, D-Winooski, who also co-sponsored H.433, similarly sees Vermonters\u2019 interest in exploring more affordable care. \u201cUniversal care gets brought up, in some form, at least two times a week here. I think we are starting to think about it more seriously,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the wake of the Affordable Care Act\u2019s passage\u00a0 in 2010, then-Gov. Peter Shumlin\u2019s administration sought to set up single-payer health care<\/a> in Vermont, but it eventually floundered, deemed too expensive for the rural state.<\/p>\n Now, federal changes are putting a different type of pressure on the state to seek innovative alternatives to the health care status quo.<\/p>\n Mayer, a pediatrician and one of the \u201cLittle Seeds\u201d group, said that he, Oxfeld and Palmer felt galvanized in their efforts to seek universal care following the congressional budget resolution that imposes new Medicaid eligibility requirements. That legislation is expected to result in more than 30,000 Vermonters losing Medicaid coverage<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n