At about 4 p.m. on the second-to-last day of 2014, Gov. Peter Shumlin released a report detailing why he made the December 17 announcement that he was scrapping plans to establish the first-in-the-nation statewide government-financed health coverage system.

The report is long and detailed. Shumlin insisted the pre-New Year's Eve document dump was not intended to hide anything, but instead was to release the data that's available as soon as possible.

The beauty of the report is that it’s online and available for all to read here.

At a news conference earlier Tuesday, Shumlin emphasized that while he had dropped the single-payer plan after determining it was too expensive, he will continue to push for changes in the way health care providers are paid. His goal, he said, is to move by 2017 from the current fee-for-service payment method to reimbursing providers for health care outcomes.

Shumlin said he’ll ask the legislature in his budget address in mid-January to make changes that will help toward that goal. That will include boosting the regulatory authority of the Green Mountain Care Board. It’ll take some money, too, and cooperation of health care providers, he said. All this presumes lawmakers affirm his election next week.

Slightly more than a month after Shumlin came away from the election with a bare lead over Republican Scott Milne, the two-term Democrat announced that his long-touted health care plans didn’t work out.

Shumlin contended he lacked the detailed information to make that decision until after the election. “We weren’t sitting around for years with a plan,” he said.

His team determined that an 11.5 percent payroll tax and an income tax ranging from nothing to 9.5 percent would be needed to fund universal coverage for Vermonters.

The report released Tuesday concluded, “Based on our analysis, the economic shock and transition issues were too great for us to recommend that Vermont proceed with public financing at this time.”

Gov. Peter Shumlin’s critics, liberal and conservative alike, have always doubted his resolve to create the nation’s first single-payer health care system.

On Wednesday afternoon, Shumlin proved them prescient.

In an extraordinary about-face, the man who built his political career on the promise of bringing universal, affordable health insurance to Vermont said that, within the last five days, he had suddenly concluded that doing so would damage the state’s economy.

“It became clear that the risk of economic shock is too high at this time to offer a plan that I can responsibly support for passage in the legislature,” Shumlin told a rapt crowd in a first-floor hearing room of the Statehouse.

His decision to scrap his own, long-promised plan and move forward with more modest reforms, he said, was “the greatest disappointment of my political life, so far.”

No doubt it was equally disappointing to those who took Shumlin at his word when he first ran for governor in 2010 pledging to “get tough things done” like turning single-payer from liberal dream to reality. Or to those who believed him when he said it again two years later during his 2012 race for reelection — or again two years after that.

Updated at 7:52 p.m.

In a striking reversal, Gov. Peter Shumlin on Wednesday abandoned his chief policy initiative, saying “now is not the right time” to pursue single-payer health care reform.

Shumlin dropped the political bombshell with no warning Wednesday afternoon at a crowded Statehouse press conference. He said that new cost estimates presented to him last Friday by his health care team made clear that the plan he envisioned was “just not affordable.”

Continuing to fight for single-payer when it would likely hurt Vermont’s economy, he said, “is not good for Vermont and it would not be good for true health care reform.”

Shumlin vowed to pursue more modest measures to slow the growth of health care spending, but his decision to forego a looming battle in the legislature over how to finance his plan marks the end — for now — of a four-year effort to dramatically restructure the state’s health care system.

It also represents a major political blow to a politician who rode to the governorship on the promise of enacting the nation’s first single-payer system. As Shumlin himself said Wednesday, “This is the greatest disappointment of my political life, so far.”

Nearly two years after deadline, Gov. Peter Shumlin will present the legislature with a plan to pay for his universal health care proposal on December 29 or 30, he revealed Wednesday. But he swears he's not trying to bury the news in the lull of the holiday season.

"That's exactly why I wanted to give you the date now," Shumlin said during a wide-ranging discussion with reporters at Burlington's Hotel Vermont. "Because I didn't want to wake up on December 31 and [read], 'It was a late-night news dump.'"

So why make such an important announcement when so many Vermonters are tuned out?

"My team is working really hard to get this together. And we believe we will have it together — we know we will — on December 29 or 30," he said. "We wanted to get it to the legislators before they're sworn in, just shortly — several days later."

In a recent photo, an infectious disease expert with the University of Vermont College of Medicine is wearing goggles, a mouth mask, gloves and a plastic blue apron over a full-body protective suit. His first name — "Majid" — is scrawled on the apron in black marker. A member of the U.S. Army and three identically dressed people stand nearby.

Ebola hasn't come to Vermont. Dr. Majid Sadigh, along with Dr. Margaret Tandoh, a trauma surgeon at UVM and the school's associate dean of diversity and inclusion, have gone to it. The two are spending six weeks in Liberia with the global health organization AmeriCares. 

They are helping to establish an ebola treatment unit in Buchannan, the country's third largest city. Tandoh was born and raised in Liberia. In an AmeriCares video shot in the John F. Kennedy International Airport before she left, Tandoh said, "I'm willing to do whatever it takes. They are my people is the way I see it. I have friends that say, 'Why don't you just send some money and you don't have to go,' but I said, 'This is home. This is where I came from. This is what made me.'"

Sadigh, who is also the global health director at Connecticut's Danbury Hospital, has blogged about his experience on the school's Global Health Diaries site. 

On November 11, Sadigh  wrote about the normalcy of the scene outside his hotel. "Even though this region lies at the outskirts of Monrovia, Liberia, a spot now known on the map for the Ebola epidemic, there is little to suggest the catastrophe claimed by American media. Of course the schools have closed, but that has permitted steady streams of boisterous children out of doors, the cheery sounds of play mingling with the quick rhythm of their drums as they amble up and down the otherwise largely deserted streets."

Sadigh also noted signs that epidemic is being brought under control: "Daily reports from the local media of the decrease in seroprevalence of Ebola in blood samples collected from nearby communities demonstrate how this epidemic is slowly becoming less sinister, more manageable, not just for those of us who work here but those who live here ... "

Two days later, Sadigh described the intensity of dependence among health care workers: "We work in a chain, forming the rows of a beehive that ultimately make up a honeycombing pattern of connectivity. My survival is contingent upon my colleague beside me, on his/her attention to detail and maintenance of protocol every minute we prepare to both enter and exit a treatment unit ... Thus as I face a patient flailing with the delirium and confusion of sickness, I cannot help but think what would happen if my protective layers are accidentally punctured, if I am thus contaminated beyond the ability of sanitizing myself – not because of what it would mean to me, but for all those others who count on me."
 
In September, Seven Days wrote about another Vermonter who spent three weeks working in Liberia — Brant Goode, a nurse epidemiologist at the Vermont Department of Health. 

The Burlington City Council voted Monday to ban smoking at any time of day on Church Street. City parks could be next. 

Similar measures have been rejected in recent years; one was vetoed by then-Mayor Bob Kiss in 2012. The Church Street Marketplace, which previously opposed a ban, helped lead the charge this time around, along with public health advocates. 

In an uncharacteristically impassioned speech, council president Joan Shannon (D- Ward 5) — who normally moderates the discussion without weighing in — spoke about her struggles with asthma, which is aggravated by secondhand smoke. Shannon said that when people smoke near her on Church Street, "It causes me to panic." Addressing the rest of the council, she continued, "I will ask those who have spoken against this to please reconsider... I really would ask that you give consideration to the rights of people to just breathe air without being impacted by other people's secondhand smoke."

Just three councilors voted against the ban — Kurt Wright (R- Ward 4),  Max Tracy (P- Ward 2) and Jane Knodell (P-Ward 2). Knodell said she was concerned it would reduce the diversity of the city's central promenade. "I think it does send a message that smokers are not welcome on the Church Street Marketplace."

A Vermont man is under a voluntary Ebola quarantine after returning to the United States yesterday from a monthlong trip to West Africa. He claimed to be helping to fight the deadly disease there, Gov. Peter Shumlin announced at an emergency press conference at the Department of Health in Burlington.

The man, whom officials did not identify, is not showing any symptoms of the virus and is considered "low risk," Shumlin said. He is in a "rural" community in housing arranged by state officials. Health department workers are visiting him twice a day. 

"The person has no signs or symptoms of illness and isn't a high risk to anyone at this time," Shumlin said. "This is extremely low risk in my judgment. However, we're going to take every reasonable precaution to keep the public safe."

The man reportedly said he is a doctor and was traveling to Sierra Leone and Guinea to help in the Ebola outbreak. But he does not have a medical license in Vermont, and aid groups operating in West Africa turned him away, Shumlin said. He was apparently traveling alone.

After the press conference, Rutland Mayor Chris Louras released a statement confirming that the man is a resident of his city.

"On October 27th, a Rutland resident returned from West Africa and due to the uncertainty surrounding his intentions while there, officials have determined that the right thing to do was to offer the opportunity to voluntarily self-quarantine for the disease’s 21-day incubation period," Louras said. "Over the last several days, the City of Rutland and the State of Vermont have been working tirelessly and collaboratively to find a safe, secure location for this Rutland resident, and we have been successful."

The Shumlin administration is parting ways with CGI, the vendor that built Vermont's still-incomplete health insurance exchange, Vermont Health Connect.

The decision to end the contract is "mutual," according to Mark Larson, commissioner of the Department of Vermont Health Access. He announced the news at a press conference this morning, alongside Lawrence Miller, whom Gov. Peter Shumlin recently appointed as chief of health care reform.

CGI has already received $57 million of Vermont's $83 million contract and, under the agreement, the Canadian company will leave the Green Mountain State with another $9.7 million, according to Miller. He noted that 97 percent of the exchange cost is federally funded.

Since the federal government ditched CGI in January, many Vermonters have been clamoring for state officials to do the same. Miller acknowledged that people will view the step as long overdue. 

"There's no doubt in my mind that the biggest question is going to be, 'Why the hell didn't you do this months ago?'" he said.

In its first meeting since the Supreme Court effectively voided Burlington's buffer zone, the City Council voted unanimously Monday to start "urgently investigating and supporting legally defensible alternatives that ensure women’s safety and access to healthcare services."

On June 26, the nation's highest court ruled that a buffer zone law in Massachusetts, created to prevent protesters from coming within 35 feet of reproductive health centers, violated the First Amendment.

Burlington had erected a similar buffer zone in 2012, but upon the advice of city attorney Eileen Blackwood, the city stopped enforcing it after the ruling. Part of the city's law remains in place. Blackwood explained that while the zone itself has been dismantled, people are still prohibited from "obstructing, detaining, hindering, impeding, or blocking a person's entry or exit from a clinic." 

The sidewalks of St. Paul Street, where Planned Parenthood runs a clinic, have gotten more crowded, according to Jill Krowinski, public affairs director for Planned Parenthood in Vermont. Prior to the ruling, a handful of protesters showed up one or two days a week. Now they're outside four to five days a week, and last Saturday, there was crowd of roughly 20 people, according to Krowinski.

As the city council's ordinance committee considers its options, Krowinski described the tactic that Burlington's Planned Parenthood is employing: "The more protestors we see, the more greeters we’ll have." 

The Supreme Court ruling suggested that Massachusetts' buffer zone wasn't "narrowly tailored," and people seeking reproductive health services could be protected using other means. It stated, “A painted line is easy to enforce, but the prime objective of the First Amendment is not efficiency.”

One of the potential long-term options suggested by Blackwood would make it a criminal rather than a civil offense to violate the still-standing part of the city's ordinance. Krowinski said that Planned Parenthood is working with its other affiliates to find alternatives, too. One possibility they are considering: asking the City Council to establish a "bubble" in lieu of a buffer that would create a barrier around patients rather than a building. The Supreme Court upheld Colorado's "bubble" law in 2000. 

At Monday's meeting, Krowinski described protestors "persistently following and engaging with patients even when they say they are not interested" and taking photos and video footage of people entering the St. Paul Street facility. 

Two of those protestors were also at the city council meeting and disputed her account. "We are being misrepresented here," said Agnes Clift. "We will continue to be there praying and offering support and literature to people."

Anti-abortion protesters can now bring their message right up to Burlington's Planned Parenthood.

In response to last Thursday's Supreme Court ruling, Burlington city attorney Eileen Blackwood announced Wednesday that the city has stopped enforcing its buffer zone, which had prevented protestors from coming within 35 feet of reproductive health centers since 2012.

The Supreme Court decision struck down a similar law in Massachusetts, nullifying that state's 35-foot buffer zone on the basis that it violated protesters' free speech.

Blackwood noted in a statement that while the city has suspended the buffer zone, she's determined that the second piece of the ordinance, which prevents people from "knowingly obstructing, detaining, hindering, impeding, or blocking a person’s entry to or exit from such a facility" still stands. The city attorney said she'll ask the City Council to amend the city ordinance accordingly when it meets on July 14.