Wyoming doesn't have Health Care

[Mile Hi]

Proven: Dean provided affordable health care, perscription drugs for seniors and improved health care for children all while balancing the state budget.

Unproven: It's easy to do that when Vermont is only the size of a large city.

1st if that were true then other states would have done the same as Dean. Wyoming with a population of under 500,000 does not have anything close to Vermont.
Nor does South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, DC, Delaware, Alaska.

Even State that have a population of less than 50% more than Vermont (approx. 1.3 million) don't have what Vermont has. Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island.

Some of these states even get more federal dollars than they payout and more than Vermont gets.

North Dakota receives $2.07 of Federal dollars for every Dollar it gives.
South Dakota gets $1.61 for every $1.00
Alaska gets $1.91 for every $1.00
Hawaii gets $1.57 for every $1.00
Montana gets $1.67 for every $1.00
Wyoming get $1.06 for every $1.00
Idaho get $1.31 for every $1.00
Maine gets $1.34 for every $1.00
DC get $6.44 for every $1.00
Vermont gets $1.13 for every $1.00
Rhode Islang gets $1.08 for every $1.00

So if it's so easy to do. Then why haven't more states provided what Vermont has. Some of these states even get 2-3 time more Federal money than Vermont does.



So I don't believe the augument that it's easy to give those things in Vermont because of the small population size is valid. If it were then why don't more states provide what the people need?

[liberalhistorian]

1. Well, for one thing, the Western states

are extremely anti-government, anti-tax (even if it was to save their own mothers), and heavily repuke, so it's a lot harder to get things like that done there than in Vermont. And they look down on the "Eastern liberal establishment" as they like to refer to it.

[Mile Hi]

2. Funny

I didn't know Maine and Rhode Island were Western GOP states and Hawaii is as Liberal as they come.

[liberalhistorian]

3. I think you misunderstood me, or, more

likely, I wasn't clear enough. I didn't mean to say ALL of the other states used the same reasoning, just most of the Western states. I don't know about the other states. Sorry, should have made that clearer in my first post.

[nancyharris]

4. Health Insurance Association of America - 1999 figures

Scroll to bottom for state-by state percentages:

http://info.insure.com/health/uninsured1200.html

Vermont ranks tied with 4 other states for 16th place for lowest percentage of uninsured under 65 (who are covered by Medicare).

[NoMoreRedInk]

5. Where did you get that list of states' returns relative to their payouts?.

I'd like to compare net-contributor states to the Blue State-Red State list.

[Mile Hi]

6. Here you go

http://www.taxfoundation.org/home.html

By the way most if not all red stated are takers and most if not all blue states are givers.

The repubs cry about their tax money going to liberal states when the opposite are true.

[sandnsea]

7. Vermont is upper income

That's been the whole point all along. When you start with a state that has a 90% coverage rate, it's easier to get to 96% coverage with children. When you're a state that started with 80% of coverage, because your populous isn't as wealthy, and get to 93%, that's actually better than what Vermont did. That's what alot of states did.

Wyoming has SCHIP, Kidcare, just like every other state in the union. A bill that began as a Kennedy-Kerry bill. It covers kids under 133% of poverty. Kerry has helped deliver on health care on this bill, AIDS legislation and the Nurse Reinvestment Act.