Caledonian Record:

To the Editor:
I want to apologize to the Caledonian Record before I start this letter. I normally do not laugh at the opinions of others, unless the opinion was meant to be taken that way. The editorial "Deja Vu" (Caledonian Record 02/05/15) did it. Deja Vu calls several New Hampshire law makers who have introduced legislation to institute a single-payer health care system in New Hampshire as "ideological misfits." This is one ideology calling another a misfit. What made me laugh is that the ideological smugness of Deja Vu did not see beyond its blindness that it (and by association we) are the "ideological misfits."
For one, every other democratic nation on this earth has a single-payer type health care system. Every one has turned in consistently better results at less cost than our market-based system. The first to prove this was the Prussian autocrat and 19th century German Chancellor, Otto Von Bismarck, the so-called iron chancellor, who in 1883, began the world’s first single-payer health care system. Bismarck was no liberal. With an irony the editorial might appreciate, he did it to keep the socialists at bay. Even the USA has proven that single payer systems do work in the examples of our three pure single payer systems — Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veterans Administration. They would work better if we as a nation would cease trying to show ourselves they cannot work.
According to a 2012 report by the State of Vermont, Department of Financial Regulation, some 90,000 Vermonters, "reported being contacted by a collection agency about unpaid medical bills." Vermont has come tolerably close to stopping this ignominy; circumstances beyond its control put the effort on hold. The "Ideological misfits" will probably kill the legislation in New Hampshire. However, those legislators across the river should be commended for their courage in trying to bring their state and, maybe, the nation into what the iron chancellor showed us so long ago.
Walter Carpenter
Montpelier, Vt.