Mark Larson, commissioner of the Department of Vermont Health Access (DVHA), said Monday afternoon that, despite 11th-hour claims to the contrary, Vermont Health Connect is "prepared to go live tomorrow." That's when Vermont officially launches its new online health insurance exchange, the first step in the state's implementation of the federally mandated Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka "Obamacare."

Larson took time out of what is arguably his most stressful day of the year to respond to criticisms about the new online exchange leveled by Republican Randy Brock. On Sunday, the former Vermont auditor, state senator and GOP gubernatorial candidate published a scathing editorial on VT Digger likening Vermont Health Connect to The Wizard of Oz, all "smoke and mirrors, and behind the curtain there is no Wizard — there is only Peter Shumlin."

"The fact of the matter is this: The system doesn’t work," Brock charged.

Not so, according to Larson.

"I think the recent op-ed is unfortunate in that it tries to create concern about our ability to successfully launch Vermont Health Connect," Larson told Seven Days this afternoon. Contrary to Brock's claims, he said, Vermonters will still be able to go online, compare health insurance plans, sign up for an account and then select a plan that works for them. If Vermonters get that far in October, he added, they’ll be invoiced come November and be able to pay either electronically or by check.

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When Vermont's new health insurance exchange goes live Tuesday morning, its chief opponents plan to flood the state with automated phone calls criticizing it.

Darcie Johnston, the founder of Vermonters for Health Care Freedom, says her organization plans to robo-call 30,000 households with a message warning Vermonters that, thanks to Gov. Peter Shumlin, they "could be left uninsured in just three months."

"Why?" the message continues. "Gov. Shumlin got the legislature to require that individuals and small employers must buy health insurance only through an online exchange called Vermont Health Connect — and the exchange may not be ready in time."

The message, which Johnston says will cost $800 to deploy, provides recipients the option to "press 1 now" to be connected with the governor — or at least the poor, beleaguered staffers answering his phones on the fifth floor of the Pavilion State Office Building. A separate message, which will be left on the voicemail systems of those who don't pick up, will helpfully provide the gov's number. 

There's nothing worse than missing a major deadline — and that's doubly true when everyone is watching, especially your political opponents, who are so hoping you blow it.

Vermont Health Connect, the state's health insurance exchange created to comply with the federal Affordable Care Act, is scheduled to launch tomorrow. But officials have already announced that the exchange will not be able to accept payments until Nov. 1. That's because, as VT Digger's Andrew Stein reported on Friday, CGI Systems and Technologies, the vendor hired to build critical components of the state's new health insurance exchange, fell badly behind in getting the job done.

Now it appears the Shumlin administration doubled down on its bet on CGI, signing an amended $84 million contract with the IT company — twice the value of the original contract — despite the fact that the company missed some key deadlines for implementing the new web-based exchange. As Stein writes:

The administration said CGI has failed to meet more than half of Vermont’s 21 performance deadlines, called “critical milestones.” Although the state has the contractual power to penalize CGI for falling behind schedule, it has not exercised this authority.

The state could charge CGI as much as $125,000 a day in penalties, depending on the length of the delay and the importance of the milestone.

Shumlin's critics were quick to jump on the bad news about Obamacare. In a long but cogent Sunday editorial on VT Digger, the former Republican gubernatorial candidate Randy Brock likened the story of Vermont Health Connect to the Wizard of Oz, where, despite the illusion of an all-powerful wizard, there's nothing behind the curtain "but a little old con artist, who has no magical powers at all."

Grab your favorite pumpkin-flavored coffee drink — that little chill in the morning means fall is here, and the first Seven Days of the season hit the streets today. Here's what you'll find for news and politics this week:

• In Fair Game, Paul Heintz reports that a program to encourage charitable giving by state employees is funding two anti-gay organizations classified as "hate groups" by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Plus, more staff changes at Vermont Public Radio, the Rutland Herald and here at Seven Days.
• A new methadone clinic to help treat drug addicts is now open in South Burlington, despite the ongoing opposition of some neighbors. Ken Picard talks to two patients.
• Vermont cops and docs are on the lookout for "molly," a powdered form of ecstasy. Kids these days.
• In archaeology news, the Abenaki may not have been the only early inhabitants of Vermont.

Pick up this week's issue in print, online or on the app.

This week's cover image by the late Stephen Huneck is courtesy of the Stephen Huneck Gallery. See this week's cover story about the future of Dog Mountain.

On Tuesday, Vermont Attorney General Bill Sorrell signed onto a letter sent by 38 other attorneys general around the country who are calling on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to regulate electronic cigarettes, or "e-cigarettes," as tobacco products under the federal Tobacco Control Act.

The battery-powered devices deliver a vaporized hit of nicotine that many smokers describe as similar in taste and feel to tobacco cigarettes, without the smoke, odor or — their manufacturers claim — deadly chemicals. Many longtime smokers credit e-cigarettes for helping them reduce or even eliminate their conventional tobacco habit entirely.

However, public health officials have expressed growing alarm in recent years about the rise of e-cigarette use among children and teenagers. Unlike traditional cigarettes, e-cigs are not currently regulated as tobacco products in the United States, thus allowing their sale to minors.

As Sorrell noted in his Tuesday press release, the U.S. Surgeon General has warned that the nicotine in e-cigarettes is still highly addictive and has immediate biochemical effects on the brain and body, and can be toxic in high doses. Sorrell also noted that the lack of regulation of e-cigarettes, both at the state and federal level, "puts youth at risk of developing a lifelong addiction to a potentially dangerous product that could also act as a gateway to using other tobacco products."

Happy Wednesday, people. Here are the news and politics stories you'll find in the latest edition of Seven Days:

• Vermont's new health care exchange goes live in less than two weeks! In this week's cover story, Ken Picard follows five households and professional "navigators" to untangle how it will work for average Vermonters.
• St. Michael's College fired two longtime custodians, and the campus isn't happy about it. Was it a case of union busting?
• A Vermont-born political strategist is playing a major role in one of the biggest races of the year in Virginia. Some observers think he may feature in the next presidential campaign.
• In looking to revitalize its downtown, is St. Albans turning its back on a piece of history?
• And in this week's Fair Game: After an ineffective 2013 session, Vermont's gun control advocates aren't going away — now they're even hiring a high-powered lobbying firm. Plus, why are F-35s okay for Vermont if missiles aren't?

If those links aren't your style, read these stories in print or on the Seven Days app.

Cover illustration by Michael Tonn

The Vermont Health Co-op is no more.

Four months after state regulators denied the nonprofit's application to sell health insurance on the forthcoming exchange, the federal government pulled its funding Monday and ordered it to close. The co-op's board subsequently voted to dissolve itself, CEO Christine Oliver said late that evening.

"Without the financial support of our federal partners, it will not be possible to offer Vermonters the member-owned and member-governed health insurance option that will be available to Americans in many other states," Oliver said in a written statement.

Founded 15 months ago, the co-op sought to provide a third option for Vermonters slated to buy health insurance through the federally mandated health insurance exchange come January. But the South Burlington-based nonprofit's plans were derailed in May when the state Department of Financial Regulation denied its application to participate in the exchange.

This week's Art Hop issue is on newsstands now. But fear not, news junkies! We've got the usual bunch of news and politics, too. Here's what you'll find:

• Bicycle theft is a never-ending problem in Burlington. Would a police registry help?
• Massage parlors around Vermont were busted for offering sexual services earlier this year. This Chinese spa in Barre fell under intense scrutiny, too — but it's totally legitimate.
• Pine Street sidewalks (where they exist) always get claustrophobic during the Art Hop in Burlington. Why won't the city close off parts of the street?
• Dartmouth College students have fanned out across the Upper Valley, finding immersive, mesmerizing stories for an online literary project.
• A University of Vermont professor is drawing the lightning bolt-shaped line between reading Harry Potter books and the politics of young Americans.
• And in Fair Game: Leahy, Sanders and Welch weigh whether to support President Obama's proposal for air strikes in Syria.

Fall is right around the corner. But until the leaves turn red and gold, people around Lake Champlain must contend with changing colors of a different sort: For the last two weeks, pea-green blooms of algae have been popping up in Missisquoi, St. Albans and Malletts bays.

“Mid-August through September is, unfortunately, what we in the business call ‘bloom season,’” says James Ehlers, executive director of the nonprofit Lake Champlain International.

Scientists have determined that early summer rain brings nutrients like phosphorus into the lake, and long stretches of sunlight facilitate photosynthesis, resulting in the pea-green film, Ehlers explains. 

“It’s not unlike April showers bring May flowers,” he says.

Vermonters who oppose the use of chloramine, a chemical disinfectant added to public water supplies to reduce potentially cancer-causing agents, scored a rare victory last week in Grand Isle County. On Aug. 20, residents of the Grand Isle Consolidated Water District voted 94 to 24 in favor of an $809,000 bond to construct a costlier but ultimately more effective and less controversial water-filtration system.

In recent years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has required public water systems throughout the country to comply with stricter standards on the presence of so-called disinfection byproducts, which can be harmful to human health. Disinfection byproducts have been linked to certain cancers as well as reproductive and developmental disorders. The EPA has recommended that public water systems switch to chloramine, a combination of chlorine and ammonia, as the "best available technology" for controlling those disinfection byproducts.