Portside

Yesterday Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin declared "now is not the right time" to proceed with any fundamental overhaul of health care financing and delivery in Vermont. He claimed the latest cost estimates for what's known locally as Green Mountain Care (GMC) were higher than originally projected, in a period when "slower recovery from the great recession has tightened the state budget. What Shumlin has championed for nearly five years was "just not affordable" anymore.

Sanders is the only member of Congress who calls himself a socialist. And if you're wondering how a Democratic socialist differs from a Democrat, he'll point to the time he took to the Senate floor for 8 1/2 hours in 2010, railing against President Obama for supporting Bush-era tax cuts. That's drawn him few fans in corporate America. But in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, a rural dairy farming region, Bernie does really well.

Senator Bernie Sanders: 'We need to expand economic models that help the middle-class.'

If built, the proposed Addison-Rutland Natural Gas Project would extend Vermont's gas pipeline grid south into Addison and Rutland counties, with the possibility of further expansions linking up with the US pipeline network in the Albany, New York area. The entire pipeline project was dealt a major blow on March 4, 2014, when three affected communities passed Town Meeting Day resolutions opposing the pipeline.

Summary - Reader Comments - Big Lie about Mayor Bill de Blasio and Charters; Ukraine; Disgraceful Rejection of Debo Adegbile; Salt of the Earth - Sixty Years and Still So Vibrant; Attack on Public Schools; Member-to-Member Harassment; NAFTA Scorecard; Vermont Public Bank; Women in Labor History; 25th Anniversary of the Web; Today in History - Senate Approves Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

Fifteen towns approve resolution that would establish bank that works for people of Vermont, not Wall Street.

Obamacare was conceived at the Heritage Foundation, and birthed in Massachusetts by Mitt Romney. Obama took Romneycare, a program designed to keep the private insurance industry intact, and improved some of its provisions. In deciding what course, the question for the new administration, which successfully ran a campaign with a large plank to make major changes to the health care delivery system, try to go around the existing insurance industry or through it?

Vermont is the home of Ben and Jerry’s, maple syrup, Bernie Sanders and the first state to pass marriage equality. Now, Vermont will be known for something that will impact every resident in the state -- a single payer health care system.

Vermont's aggressive health care reform initiatives can serve as a roadmap for other states, according to Laura Grubb, a Master of Public Health candidate at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). "Vermont is progressive," said Grubb, also a fellow in adolescent medicine at the UTHealth Medical School. "They didn't wait until each step of the Affordable Care Act had to be implemented. They voted on their own state-based reform system."