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Members of the House Health Care Committee listen to testimony at the Statehouse in Montpelier on Feb. 3. From the left are committee chair Rep. Alyssa Black, D-Essex Town; Rep. Daisy Berbeco, D-Winooski; and Rep. Brian Cina, P\/D-Burlington. Photo by Glenn Russell\/VTDigger<\/p>\n
How much sway does the voice of the people really have in the People\u2019s House?\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Town Meeting Day, eight Vermont towns resoundingly called on the Legislature<\/a> to take up a bill that would launch a multiphase universal health care program, called Green Mountain Care.\u00a0<\/p>\n That bill, H.433<\/a>, did not make it past crossover deadlines and has no real chance of becoming a law this year. But House Health Care Committee members still took it off the wall Wednesday and had legislative counsel Jennifer Carbee walk them through the bill\u2019s language \u2014\u00a0\u201cfor educational purposes,\u201d at least, said Rep. Alyssa Black, D-Essex Town, the committee chair.<\/p>\n Still, the activists behind the Town Meeting Day resolution found legislators\u2019 approach to the faltering bill promising.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI was buoyed,\u201d Dr. Jack Mayer, a primary care physician who testified before the committee Wednesday, told VTDigger. He was one of the driving forces behind putting the resolution to town meeting voters.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the end, the intention of the resolution was, let\u2019s just get this onto the floor. Let\u2019s debate this. Let\u2019s consider it. Let\u2019s have the conversation,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lawmakers on the House panel asked technical questions about what kind of preventative services Green Mountain Care might include and how the state might fund such a program. They entertained these concerns not only for the fun of it, but also to inform their work on the year\u2019s big primary care bill, S.197<\/a>, that just crossed into their committee from the Senate.<\/p>\n That bill, which would devise a payment system for patients to access primary care without needing to pay for each service, may very well be the vehicle for the spirit of universal care \u2014\u00a0or at least universal primary care \u2014\u00a0to live on.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the landscape is starting to change,\u201d Mayer said. \u201cI think there\u2019s a dawning awareness on the part of the Legislature that what we\u2019re doing is unsustainable, and \u2014 for a host of reasons \u2014 it makes sense to start entertaining the notion of a publicly funded primary care.\u201d<\/p>\n In particular, Mayer will be looking for the legislation to include a study that can explore the financial realities of implementing a universal primary care system. To him, it would be the first indication of serious change.<\/p>\n The committee largely shared his enthusiasm and desire to explore universal care further \u2014\u00a0and they weren\u2019t just humoring him this April Fool\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have an ongoing joke in this committee, that if you don\u2019t believe in universal health care when you start in this committee, you will by the time you finish,\u201d said Black, the chair.<\/p>\n \u2014\u00a0Olivia Gieger\u00a0<\/p>\n In the know<\/p>\n The Vermont Labor Relations Board has ordered that Gov. Phil Scott\u2019s administration \u201crescind\u201d a controversial requirement that state employees return to their physical offices three days per week.<\/p>\n The board, a non-judicial body that makes decisions on the labor grievances of state employees, said in its decision Wednesday that the state has \u201crefused to bargain in good faith and interfered with employees\u2019 exercise of rights\u201d in requiring in-person work.<\/p>\n Scott called the decision \u201cdisappointing, but not surprising\u201d in his weekly press conference Wednesday, and said the board\u2019s membership is \u201cweighted towards labor.\u201d<\/p>\n While Scott appointed the board\u2019s members himself, he told reporters that \u201cparameters\u201d governing the body\u2019s makeup had limited his choices, appearing to refer to the panel\u2019s statutory guidelines<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Earlier in the day, his office put out a statement lambasting the state labor relations board and its decision, calling the body \u201cbroken.\u201d<\/p>\n The state has already filed a notice of appeal with the Vermont Supreme Court, officials said.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Vermont State Employees\u2019 Association, for its part, called the decision a \u201cstunning victory\u201d in a Wednesday email to members. The order, union leadership said in that email, protects \u201cthe rights of our members to have a say in their conditions of employment.\u201d<\/p>\n Read the full story here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2014\u00a0Theo Wells-Spackman<\/p>\n Rep. Brian Cina, P\/D-Burlington, pulled a pair of Airpods from his jacket pocket: \u201cSomeday soon \u2014 very soon \u2014 you\u2019re going to be able to take these, put it in your ear,\u201d he said, doing so, \u201cand it\u2019s going to link with your brain. We\u2019re very close to that.\u201d<\/p>\n He demonstrated this before the Senate Health and Welfare Committee on Wednesday as he reported his neural privacy bill, H.814<\/a>, which aims to establish standards and rights to protect people\u2019s privacy and humanity from the ever-encroaching reach of artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n The bill would establish an Artificial Intelligence Advisory Council to provide recommendations for how the state uses the technology in health care, education, state and local budgets, and more.<\/p>\n \u201cAs scary as it may sound, it\u2019s here. We cannot really stop it at this point,\u201d Cina said of AI technology interfacing with all facets of life.<\/p>\n Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden Southeast, said it\u2019s likely her committee will take up the bill. Its core message that AI should improve the human condition, not undermine it, is an important one, she said.<\/p>\n \u2014\u00a0Olivia Gieger\u00a0<\/p>\n On the move<\/p>\n On Wednesday, senators passed S.193<\/a>, which would create a facility<\/a> for people who are charged with violent crimes but are temporarily found incompetent to stand trial or found by a court to be not guilty by reason of insanity.\u00a0<\/p>\n Twenty-nine senators voted in favor of the bill. Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky, P\/D-Chittenden Central, was the lone legislator opposed.\u00a0<\/p>\n