Paul Dame: Republicans have an opportunity to start building ladders

This commentary is by Paul Dame, chair of the Vermont GOP.

The legislative session is about to start this week, and Vermonters are looking for help with troubles that include issues surrounding healthcare, housing, and childcare among others. In every one of these cases we have the misfortune of current law that has placed barriers between the average Vermonter and their ability to access each of these needs for their family.

Paul Dame, chairman of the Vermont GOP

With a new year now underway, many Vermonters have their health care deductibles reset to zero. This means that they will be paying a bigger portion, in some cases 100% of their medical costs, when they need care early in the year. This comes on top of the mortgage-sized payment of $1,000 to $2,000 families need to pay monthly even if they never get sick or never need care.

Decades ago Democrats started experimenting on our health care system, raising barriers for insurers to operate in Vermont until only about three major companies are left. In addition they have added requirements and programs that have raised barriers for smaller private practice doctors to function, which is why so many practices are either selling out to the UVM monopoly, or just disappearing completely when the principal retires. With Vermont’s Onecare experiment they are working on adding another layer of bureaucratic barriers between the insurer and the provider. Vermont’s Certificate of Need laws also prevent specialized surgical centers from getting started to relieve the backlog of patients on waiting lists, and they also stop new organizations from launching home health agencies that offer in-home care to the elderly. Republicans have an opportunity to build a ladder over those barriers that helps bring patients closer to their doctors, reducing the administrative costs to care and restoring the doctor-patient relationship.

Many younger Vermonters are still hoping that a cooling housing market will create an opportunity for them to get into their first-time home. But fewer and fewer of the homes being built now, and those that have been built recently, are within the price range of many first-time buyers. Vermont has put up barriers that make it expensive for developers to build the kind of starter homes that exploded in the 1960s when we needed the rapid growth. Sometimes local and regional zoning along with outdated environmental restrictions make it easier (and more profitable) to build one 3,600 sq ft mansion instead of three 1,200 sq ft homes. Republicans have an opportunity to start building ladders over those barriers that makes it simple and profitable enough to build the kind of start-up housing stock that has been missing for ages, clearing a path between young Vermonters and homes they want to get in to.

Vermont’s young parents have an incredible work ethic, and want to engage in the workforce our state needs — but they are struggling to find the childcare to make it happen. Many trusted providers, family and experienced mothers or grandmothers have encountered barriers that prevent them from helping parents get back to work — especially in rural Vermont. Regulations that prescribe the number and size of toilets required for taking care of 3 month olds, or the education credentials for teaching toddlers to count to 10 have made it more difficult for Vermonters helping Vermonters to address the childcare crisis that many parents are feeling. Republicans have an opportunity to build a ladder over those barriers and reconnect parents and providers, especially in those locations where there are currently no available openings.

Democrats have been building these barriers for years, and now protect them and many others, because the barriers to entry always serve the interests of the largest players in these fields. The largest insurers like having their competition prevented from entering Vermont. The largest child care providers want to squeeze out the smaller, more nimble places. Larger developers have the workforce and army of architects to navigate any planning or zoning surprise.

But Vermonters are scrappy, hard-working folks who love to root for the underdog. And if Democrats choose to spend the next two years putting up new barriers to gun ownership, new barriers to school choice or new barriers to taking home all of your wages, then Republicans can reshape and redefine the party as one that is working toward providing something positive to regular Vermonters who don’t have access to a lobbyist. Our party has always been about giving to everyone who wants it a chance to climb a ladder of success over the barriers that exist for regular people. It wasn’t enough to point out that Democrats have put up these barriers, Republicans have to start building the ladders we all need to overcome them.

Image courtesy of Public domain

8 thoughts on “Paul Dame: Republicans have an opportunity to start building ladders

  1. There are 20 republicans in the us house, we need more, we need more in Vermont.

    Hopefully the swamp doesn’t win every battle, just imagine if there were 40 or 50 we’d have some positive change in our country. All hope is not lost.

  2. Republicans need to get control of the registered voter lists and start cleaning up, using comparisons standard data bases.

    All mailed out ballots should be numbered. Machines can easily sort numbered ballots

    Any ballot without an officially signed chain of custody should be voided.
    That includes all ballots returned to post offices as “undeliverable”

  3. So true, there is so much we can do to expose the hearts of those in power that talk a good talk but do not have people’s interest but their own.

    We can win hearts and minds and NOT give up our values, some small examples.

    a) any car over 10 years old costs $5 per year to register. This helps the poor, this promotes the good stewardship of vehicle, it recycles southern cars for those desperate for cheap transportation.

    b) any american car with a combined mpg of over 28 mpg gets $5 registration.

    c) we promote adoption, we provide accounts for those who’ve made mistakes, we educate those in science, we forgive those who have made a bad choice in life and carry a heavy burden, we promote timeless truths about sex and its proper use, wait until marriage and only for marriage. We provide truth, love and wisdom for our current state of abortion lies, we do what we can, with what we are given.

    d) we promote food sovereignty. The Amish are being taken down, we are next. We should promote the ultimate food to table. No government should be able to stop people from raising, sharing and selling of food and livestock.

    e) we should promote modest vermont housing, not the subsidized criminal, money making system known as Vermont affordable housing, where everybody is getting rich off of keeping people poor.

    There is so much we can promote and do, that cost little money, and put forth and offensive posture to the truth and justice so many Vermonters are starving to see come forth in our little state.

    May you be blessed to bring this or other similar ideas to the people of vermont. If we keep doing what we are doing we’ll keep getting what we are getting.

    Many are waiting for positive change. God Speed.

    • No sales tax on cars over 12’years old.

      Helps the poor, reduces taxes, promotes good stewardship/recycle….

      How do those following a marxist path deny this? It would expose their hearts. Would be a win, win, win for the VtGOP.

      There is so much we can do, if we only avoid the traps and trigger words set up for us by our little water boys for the new world order.

      • At the same time raise taxes on their little MJ experiment. Get the state out of profiteering on drug use. If you raise it high enough, people will go out of business, do some other type of work.

        Hey while we’re at it tax porn, they tax every other movie….that would be a wonderful tax.

        • exactly….shows their true heart and intention.

          anyone living in Vermont knows transportation is essential to survive. It will put the NWO waterboys on their back foot.

  4. “But Vermonters are scrappy, hard-working folks who love to root for the underdog.”
    Did Paul find a time machine to go back to the 90’s? This is not an accurate depiction of Vermont today.

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