Fear of Single Payer Eliminates Supply of Doctors in Vermont

CS Monitor reports:

When Dr. Alan Binnick decided to retire after 34 years, he tried for more than a year to find someone to take over his dermatology practice in the southwestern Vermont town of Bennington – free of charge.

Last November, he gave up, saying his search failed in no small part because of Vermont’s health-care reform effort, perhaps the most radical in the United States.

“There’s a sense of uncertainty that made (potential doctors) choose other positions elsewhere, where they know they’re in demand,” Dr. Binnick says.

Tiny, quirky Vermont is at it again, tackling pressing social concerns with a progressive vengeance. This time, it’s health care, and if all goes well, by 2017 or even earlier, the state of 626,000 plans to become the first in the country to adopt a single-payer system. But there’s serious uncertainty about what it will look like, and how it will be paid for.

Going Galt.