How To Depopulate Vermont In Just Twelve Years

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by E.A. Blair

By most measures, Vermont is a nice place. It produces teddy bears, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and 25% of the maple syrup produced in the United States. It is the adopted home of Senator Bernie Sanders and the setting for Bob Newhart’s second (and second most successful) sitcom. It has good skiing and has a large tourist industry.

Vermont is also small. It is 49^th in population (624,594), 45^th in area and is one of six states that have populations under a million (and, therefore, only one representative in the US House). It’s one of eleven states that have a single area code. It has the smallest state capital (Montpelier, 7,855) and the smallest city that is the largest in its state (Burlington, 42,417).

Look at that last figure: the population of Burlington Vermont is 42,417. That is almost the same as the estimated number of people (42,000) who will die under TrumpCare(less)* but who would live under the Affordable Care Act. Now imagine that all of those people who would die are Vermonters.

Imagine you vacationed in Vermont every summer, and that, in the space of a single year, when you passed through Burlington, you found that it had become, for all intents and purposes, a ghost town. The following year, South Burlington, Rutland and Barre, the next three largest cities in Vermont, would be similarly deserted. In the space of fifteen years, the entire state would be devoid of human habitation. Goodbye, Ben & Jerry’s. Goodbye, teddy bears. Goodbye, Larry, Daryl & Daryl. Goodbye, skiing at Stowe.

Would Americans feel differently about health care if they knew that an entire state could be depopulated in just fifteen years? I’d like to think they would. Would Republicans feel differently about health care if they knew that an entire state could be depopulated in just fifteen years? Given their reaction to the House passing TrumpCare(less), probably not, seeing as how Vermont’s been reliably blue since 1992.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that as many as 24,000,000 fewer Americans who are covered by the ACA will lose that insurance within ten years. The ratio of uninsured to insured will double from one in ten to one in five. Given the US Census Bureau projection that the US population will be in the vicinity of 360,000,000, that means that in 2027, there will be 72,000,000 uninsured Americans. That will be roughly equivalent to the combined populations of California, Texas and Oklahoma. There are 176 (out of 195) countries in the world with populations less than 72,000. France, the United Kingdom and Italy all have populations less than that. It is almost three times the population of all five Nordic nations (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden).

Imagine whole nations or groups of nations whose populations are held economic hostage by lack of health insurance. Imagine 176 countries whose governments tell their populace that they don’t give a damn whether the people live or die. That is the Republican vision for the United States of America. That vision is aided, abetted and financed by the 1% who look on the 99% not as human beings but as resources to be exploited**. That is a saddening and terrifying vision. I cannot describe my feelings about this without resorting to incoherent profanity, and while I am not averse to profanity itself, I prefer to use it coherently. That said, go fuck yourselves with a cactus, GOP.

* Update: A later estimate ups the number of estimated deaths from 42,000 to 52,747, which would depopulate Burlington in under 10 months and the rest of Vermont in just 12 years.

**It was in the Reagan years that Personnel Offices became Human Resource Departments.

About Post Author

Professor Mike

Professor Mike is a left-leaning, dog loving, political junkie. He has written dozens of articles for Substack, Medium, Simily, and Tribel. Professor Mike has been published at Smerconish.com, among others. He is a strong proponent of the environment, and a passionate protector of animals. In addition he is a fierce anti-Trumper. Take a moment and share his work.

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