{"id":504917,"date":"2026-03-05T08:47:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T08:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/504917\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T08:47:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T08:47:14","slug":"towns-take-the-temperature-on-support-for-universal-health-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/504917\/","title":{"rendered":"Towns take the temperature on support for universal health care"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">MIDDLEBURY, Vt. (WCAX) &#8211; Several Vermont towns have voted on a measure urging the Legislature to reconsider single-payer health care.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Middlebury, Salisbury, and Putney approved it Tuesday night. New Haven, Bristol, and Weybridge also approved the measure on Monday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Voters in at least eight towns were expected to consider the non-binding referendum to urge the Legislature <a href=\"https:\/\/legislature.vermont.gov\/bill\/status\/2026\/H.433\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/legislature.vermont.gov\/bill\/status\/2026\/H.433\">to take up the bill<\/a> exploring a universal primary care system funded by public tax dollars. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Voters in at least eight towns were expected to consider the non-binding referendum to urge the Legislature <a href=\"https:\/\/legislature.vermont.gov\/bill\/status\/2026\/H.433\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/legislature.vermont.gov\/bill\/status\/2026\/H.433\">to take up a bill<\/a> exploring a universal primary care system funded by public tax dollars. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Vermont attempted a statewide single-payer system under Gov. Peter Shumlin, but he abandoned the effort in 2014 after Vermonters saw the cost of shifting from private premiums to an 11% payroll tax. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The universal primary care bill faces a crossover deadline the week after Town Meeting Day, making passage this session unlikely.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 WCAX. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIDDLEBURY, Vt. (WCAX) &#8211; Several Vermont towns have voted on a measure urging the Legislature to reconsider single-payer&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[167629,97,252,253,229866,13098,27076,34752],"class_list":["post-504917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-addison-county","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-town-meeting","tag-universal-health-care","tag-vermont","tag-wcax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}