Tag Archives: Randy Brock

Brock ends his campaign for governor

Posted on November 6, 2012 by | Comments Off

Republican Randy Brock conceded the race just before 10:30 p.m. Tuesday. Before the speech, he had been unable to reach Gov. Peter Shumlin, but he said he planned to wish him success as governor.
“This is the final chapter in the greatest experience that I’ve had in my entire life,” he said.
He plans to remain in public policy in Vermont.

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Brock goes for the jugular in new ad you’ve gotta see to believe

Posted on October 30, 2012 by | 1 Comment

In a new television ad reminiscent of something Vermonters might have seen during the Shumlin/Dubie smack-down of 2010, Randy Brock has broken out the knives with a 30-second spot set to hit network airwaves this morning.

It’s a compilation of Brock’s best political hits from the summer and fall, and touches on everything from Gov. Peter Shumlin’s East Montpelier land deal to the four months he spent out of state during his first 21 months in office.

Keep out a close eye for the infamous Facebook photo of Shumlin with campaign manager Alex Mac Lean and DGA staffer Liz Smith at the 2011 Preakness.

Yeah, Brock went there.

The final touch: a nasty edit job that tries to make Shumlin look like he’s mounting some kind of cover-up over government settlements with state workers.

You’ve got to see it to believe it. Head over to www.RandyBrock.com. If the spot doesn’t show up on the splash page, then click through to the main site and look for it on the right-hand column, underneath the maroon “Volunteer for Brock” square.

According to a mass media filing, Brock will spend $25,000 to air the ad, however the campaign will use the spot to mount a late-race fundraiser aimed at getting it in front of more eyeballs.

 

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With only a week until Election Day, pols cede center stage to Sandy

Posted on October 29, 2012 by | Comments Off

A storm named Sandy may have relegated politics to the backburner for at least a couple days, but don’t expect politicians to batten down the hatches on their campaigns.

With only a week until Election Day, retail politics is in full swing. And Republican candidate for governor Randy Brock today said he won’t let Sandy take the wind out of his sails.

“I always get the best responses at sign waves or other events when it’s snowing and the wind is blowing,” Brock said. “People know you want the job and are willing to endure some discomfort to get it.”

As a practical matter, the storm will force some rescheduling. Incumbent Treasurer Beth Pearce was to have received a high-profile endorsement earlier this morning from former Gov. Howard Dean. The Democrat’s campaign called reporters Sunday evening to say the Statehouse event had been postponed until later in the week.

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Top adminsitration official moonlights as campaign surrogate

Posted on October 17, 2012 by | 1 Comment

As part of its annual convention last evening, the union representing Vermont’s nurses invited candidates for political office to share with its membership their “health care priorities.”

The Vermont State Nurses Association drew several statewide hopefuls to the event, including Randy Brock, Cassandra Gekas, Bill Sorrell, Jack McMullen and… Steve Kimbell?

Kimbell isn’t running for office, of course. But the commissioner of financial regulation has apparently assumed a role as political surrogate for Peter Shumlin.

“It was after normal working hours and the campaign asked me if I was available and I said yes,” Kimbell said today.

Kimbell said he checked with state lawyers first to make sure it’s okay for him to stand in at candidate forums on behalf of his boss.

“Apparently, if you’re a state employee, what you do on your private time in the political world is your own business,” Kimbell said.

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Shumlin campaign up with first television ads since 2010

Posted on October 17, 2012 by | Comments Off

For the first time in a long time, Peter Shumlin is paying to get on TV.

Owing to his role as governor, the first-term incumbent enjoys pretty frequent face time on network television already. Beginning later this week, he’ll complement that earned media with a $125,000 ad buy that will, according to campaign manager Alex MacLean, “deliver a positive message of Gov. Shumlin getting tough things done.”

“They highlight the fact that together with Vermonters, he’s balanced two tough budgets without raising broad-based taxes, created thousands of jobs, and helped Vermont recover from Irene in less time and less money than anyone imagined,” MacLean said this afternoon.

The Brock campaign, meanwhile, today began airing the last of a three-part ad series aimed at undercutting support for Shumlin. After hitting him on jobs and single-payer, Brock’s team this time is trying to label Shumlin as a “tax and spend” Democrat.

Shumlin this fall has been eager to talk about his record on taxes. He recently told members of Associated Industries of Vermont they’d be hard pressed to find a more fically conservative candidate than himself, R or D.  

According to a mass media report filed with the secretary of state, the Brock campaign also spent about $5,000 on a statewide fundraising mailer that will look to use an anti-incumbent message to raise money, something that’s proven hard to come of late for the Republican incumbent.

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In new ad buy, Brock targets single-payer

Posted on October 2, 2012 by | Comments Off

Today marks the beginning of another 10-day ad buy for Republican challenger Randy Brock, who will spread about $70,000 between three network TV stations to reach into living rooms across Vermont.

His message to voters this time: Peter Shumlin’s single-payer health care plan “will result in the largest tax increase in Vermont history.”

The 30-second spot opens with Shumlin himself announcing the birth of single-payer on the steps of the Statehouse. But a cautionary female voiceover soon warns viewers that all is not as well as Shumlin would have you believe.

“Wondering how this is going to work? Higher taxes, reduced choice, price controls, rationing of service, doctors leaving,” she says.

In what seems to be the formula for Brock’s autumn ad rollout – a 10-day run of commercials knocking Shumlin’s handling of the economy just expired – the second half of the spot turns the camera’s focus away from the Democratic incumbent and on to the Republican challenger.

“And we don’t know how we’re going to pay for it. We don’t know the effect that it will have on our providers,” Brock says. “And we know in all likelihood that it will result in the largest tax increase in Vermont history.”

For a guy with only about $240,000 on hand as of Sept. 15, Brock is hitting the airwaves pretty heavily. He’s spent $140,000 now on 20 days worth of ads, and told reporters yesterday that he had not loaned his campaign any more money.

Either the Brock camp has ratcheted up its fundraising pace consdirably, or the well is nearly dry.

Shumlin, meanwhile, has yet to spend a dime on television, and campaign manager Alex MacLean has declined to say when, or even if, they’ll go up on the airwaves.

Shumlin had nearly $900,000 cash on hand as of Sept. 15. At the rate he’s spending, he may well have a seven-figure war chest. On the day after the election.

 

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With Republican friends like Lauzon, who needs enemies?

Posted on September 24, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Tom Lauzon has carved out a reputation as a bit of a political showman, and at a press conference this morning in which seven of the state’s eight sitting mayors endorsed Peter Shumlin, Lauzon did not disappoint.

The Republican mayor of Barre City didn’t merely endorse the Democratic incumbent, he chided his party for even running a candidate against him.

“I think (Republican challenger) Randy (Brock) is absolutely a fine man,” Lauzon said. “But I think quite frankly this was an ill-advised campaign and people are going to spend a lot of money to try to replace a leader who doesn’t need to be replaced.”

Though he was the lone dyed-in-the-wool Republican on hand to endorse Shumlin, he was by far the most enthusiastic. Lauzon has come a long way since taping the anti-Shumlin robo-calls that rained on Vermont homes on the eve of the 2010 election.

“Brian (Dubie) was, is, and always will be a good friend,” Lauzon said.

But ever since Shumlin in early 2011 went to his house, had a sandwich, and talked things over, Lauzon said he’s been a happy member of Team Shumlin.

“When the governor said he’d like to come have lunch with me and sit in a private setting, I said, you know, here we go – it’s going to be robo-call revenge,” Lauzon said. “But I was struck at how anxious the governor was and how sincere he was to work with me. He said, ‘look, campaigns aside, difference aside, I want to make things better.’”

So why did Lauzon and his wife contribute a total of $4,000 to the Brock campaign?

It’s not that he supports the candidacy, Lauzon explained, but that he had to smooth things over with the GOP for so publicly getting behind Shumlin.

“I received a call from Mark Snelling. Mark said, ‘Republicans are very disappointed that you endorsed the governor.’ And I said, ‘yeah, I understand that Mark,’” Lauzon said. “And he said, ‘I’m very disappointed.’ I said, ‘Mark, I absolutely understand that …’ And he said, ‘if you send $4,000 then you’re off the hook.’ So I did.”

Not that it’ll make any difference, Lauzon said later.

“I have a lot of respect for Randy but quite frankly I think we could send him $40,000 and I don’t think it changes the result at the end of the day,” Lauzon said.

Lauzon tried to put it in perspective later, saying a $4,000 penance to get back in the good graces of the Republican Party isn’t so steep.

“I suppose over the years if I had to add up all the bouquets of flowers that I bought for (my wife) Karen and dinners that I bought when I was like, oh dammit, I was supposed to do that? I forgot,” Lauzon said to a few reporters after the press conference. “You know, it probably comes to a lot more than four grand.”

As for sharing the genesis of the $4,000 Brock contribution publicly, Lauzon said there’s no shame and nothing to hide.

“That’s the honest story. Mark called and said, ‘we’re really upset with you.’ I said, ‘Mark, I get it,’” Lauzon said. “So basically four grand got me of the hook and I wrote the check.”

And if Snelling is upset about the public airing of Republican’s dirty laundry?

“There’s nothing about this that’s private,” Lauzon said. “It was a conversation. I’ve been asked and I offered the truth. So, you know, if they don’t like it, I’m sorry. Don’t make the call again.”

 

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Anti-single-payer group to take to Vermont airwaves

Posted on September 20, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Four weeks after cutting its first television ad, the state’s leading anti-single-payer group has finally raised enough money to put it on the air.

Vermonters for Health Care Freedom will spend about $12,000 to run the 30-second spot on WCAX and WPTZ between now and the end of the October.

Jeff Wennberg, executive director of the organization, says that with Election Day on the horizon, it made sense for the group to bring the message to a statewide audience. The ad will run during “news and information” shows, he said.

“The good thing is that prior to an election, people are thinking about policy matters and thinking about the direction state and our nation are headed,” Wennberg said this afternoon.

Production was a low-budget affair. The spot, titled “Bureaucrats,” was made using donated space and unpaid volunteer “actors,” according to Wennberg.

“Even so we believe it effectively communicates the message that once the government has full control of our health care system, our access to needed services will be limited, not by medical professionals but by unaccountable bureaucrats in the name of cost containment,” Wennberg said when the ad was released on the internet last month.

The spot features a woman, facing a potentially dire prognosis, and a doctor saying, “I think we need to run a test, if that’s okay.”

“That’s okay with me,” the female patient says.

“Sorry – I wasn’t talking to you,” the doctor says. “Is that okay with you?”

The conceit here is that the doctor is in fact talking to the “bureaucrats” that Wennberg says would, under a single-payer system, be empowered to make health care decisions on behalf of Vermonters.

“Gov. Shumlin’s single-payer health care plan gives unaccountable bureaucrats the power to limit the care Vermonters receive,” the ad says.

As a nonprofit 501(c)4 organization, Vermonters for Health Care Freedom is permitted to engage only in “issue advocacy,” and cannot advocate for the election or defeat of a specific candidate.

Despite the use of Shumlin’s name in the ad, and the fact that it’ll be running on the eve of an election, Wennberg says the group is on sound legal footing.

“We are certainly not advocating that anyone vote for or against any candidate,” Wennberg said. “I believe we mention that the single-payer program is Gov. Shumlin’s single-payer program, and the ad speaks directly to concerns for what that program will do to the doctor-patient relationship if it’s implemented. I think that’s fair game and I don’t think we have any (legal) issues there.”

Republican challenger Randy Brock, who yesterday outlined in greater detail his free-market alternative to single-payer, has made opposition to Shumlin’s health care plan one of the touchstones of his fall campaign.

Wennberg said the ad campaign is also intended to provide a countervailing view to the pro-single-payer ads run by the organization “Vermont Leads” earlier this summer. That group, funded entirely by a chapter of the Service Employees International Union, spent about $100,000 on the ad campaign.

Wennberg has not disclosed the sources of funding for Vermonters for Health Care Freedom.

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Untruth and consequences: Super PAC head denies, then admits, dinner with Brock

Posted on September 19, 2012 by | Comments Off

The head of Vermont’s new Republican super PAC stepped in it big time today when he lied to Seven Days reporter Paul Heintz about the last time he’d met with GOP gubernatorial candidate Randy Brock.

Brock this morning held court with reporters outside the Central Vermont Medical Center to expand on the health care proposal he first unveiled earlier this month. When the topic of the GOP super PAC “Vermonters First” came up, Heintz asked Brock about whether he’d met recently with the group’s treasurer, Tayt Brooks.

Why would Heintz care?

The same federal laws that permit super PACs to spend unlimited sums of money to influence the outcomes of elections also forbid them from coordinating their activities in anyway with the candidates whose political prospects they’re trying to propel.

Brock was candid, saying he’d had Brooks over to dinner the night before. Brooks formerly served as executive director of the Vermont Republican Party, and Brock said the two are friends who get together on occasion.

But he was adamant the two did not discuss politics.

“The point is, we didn’t talk about campaign stuff,” Brock said. “He’s not involved in my campaign.”

Immediately after the press conference, Heintz (brilliantly) put in a call to Brooks to get his answer to the same question: when was the last time you met with Randy Brock?

According to Heintz, who details the exchange on his blog, Off Message, at www.sevendaysvt.com, Brooks “at first claimed he hadn’t seen the gubernatorial candidate in months.”

“Asked when he last saw Brock, Brooks said, ‘I really honestly don’t know.’ Asked again, he said, ‘I have to think about it.’ Asked a third time, he said, ‘The last time I saw Randy Brock was probably a few months ago,’” Heintz reports.

Told that Brock had minutes ago shared with the media news of their dinner the night before, Brooks began singing a different tune.

“I did meet with Randy last night,” he told Heintz. “I happened to catch up with Randy last night.”

Neither Brooks nor Brock would talk about what they discussed at Brock’s Franklin County home.

“It was a private conversation,” Brooks told Heintz. “It was not related as far as anything with Vermonters First.”

The dinner conversation between Brock and Brooks may have been within the law. But Brooks’ misstep today certainly won’t inspire public confidence in the super PAC’s independence from the candidates on whose behalf it’s working.

While Vermonters First hasn’t yet run ads specifically championing Randy Brock, a newly released ad critical of single payer asks voters to “Elect balance” in November.

The Vermont Democratic Party was quick to seize on the controversy.

“Clearly Vermonters can’t believe what Tayt Brooks says and it’s no surprise that his organization’s ads are misleading, counterfactual, and negative,” VDP Chairman Jake Perkinson said in a release. “We take any potential collaboration between Randy Brock’s campaign and the Super PAC Vermonters First very seriously. Tayt Brooks repeated refusal to discuss the meeting between himself and Randy Brock only casts further question on the potential collusion. Voters expect and deserve candidates that will not only comply with Vermont law, but also provide an honest and factual conversation.”

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Weedmaps aims to help Shumlin find path to victory

Posted on September 18, 2012 by | Comments Off

Remember the flap in early August over Peter Shumlin’s plea for campaign donations from a national organization that wants to legalize marijuana?

Well Republican challenger Randy Brock ought to have even more fun with the latest cannabis-related contributor on Shumlin’s campaign-finance disclosures.

“Weedmaps Media Inc.” sent the Democratic incumbent a $2,000 check last month. And as the company’s tagline indicates, the online outfit is dedicated to helping medical marijuana enthusiasts “Find Your Bud.”

According to estimates from the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, which itself has given $2,000 to the Shumlin reelection campaign, Weedmaps is the country’s premier medical marijuana dispensary directory, connecting more than 1 million medical marijuana patients to thousands of cannabis dispensaries nationwide.

Medical marijuana is a serious issue for the chronically ill Vermonters whose pain it helps alleviate. Weedmaps, however, seems to be courting a more recreational user base.

The main page, for example, features a live chat called “What R U Smoking On?” wherein users submit Tweet-length reviews of their current bud of choice.

“Blazing that blue skunk fire dank,” reports “Carnalito22.”

For “Caligoodbud,” the “Starfire bubba kush” has been going very nicely.

Users can also find reviews of dispensaries and their products, to find out in advance whether items like Dr. J’s Buzz Buttons are worth the scratch.

To see how it all works, head over to weedmaps.com, type in your zip code, and the site will reveal medical marijuana dispensaries in your region.

No prescription? No problem.

The good folks at Weedmaps have compiled a roster of physicians eager to provide patients with the doctor’s approval they need to buy their buds legally in states likeCalifornia,Colorado,WashingtonandMichigan.

Type in the zip code for Montpelier, and the site will direct you to a pair of dispensaries inMontreal– Le Holistique Collectif and the Montreal Compassion Centre.

Vermont doesn’t have any medical marijuana dispensaries. Yet. On the heels of controversial legislation passed with Shumlin’s support in 2011, public safety officials last week gave the go ahead for two dispensaries to be located in Waterbury and Burlington. The dispensaries could open their doors as early as next year.

We put in a call to the Weedmaps headquarters in Newport Beach, California, to find out what it is about Shumlin that so impressed them. No response so far.

Shumlin campaign manager Alex MacLean said the donation arrived unsolicited in the mailbag.

“Clearly this is a business that agrees with the governor’s belief that marijuana should be decriminalized in order for our limited resources to be targeted more effectively,” MacLean said.

She said the campaign had vetted Weedmaps, and found it to be a suitable outfit from which to accept a campaign donation.

Strict regulations on the number, size and operating protocols of dispensaries in Vermont were designed to avoid the proliferation of dispensaries in places like California and Colorado, where more permissive guidelines have basically provided an end-run around criminal marijuana statutes.

If future legislation opens the dispensary doors a little wider here, good to know Vermonters will have a Weedmap to help us find our bud.

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Shumlin, single-payer enjoying some national attention

Posted on September 17, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Team Shumlin must be thrilled with the lead on a recent profile of the first-term incumbent:

“Most governors are, at best, slogging their way through the world of health reform implementation.Vermont’s Gov. Peter Shumlin is hurtling through it.”

That’s the take from Politico reporter Joanne Kenen, who interviewed Shumlin for the piece during his recent trip to Charlotte, N.C., for the Democratic National Convention.

The story summarizes the brief history of Shumlin’s push toward single-payer, as well as some of the obstacles that stand in its path.

Kenen dutifully offers the countervailing view from Republican challenger Randy Brock.

“Down that path (to single-payer) lie higher taxes, reduced choice, price controls and rationing of services,” Brock says in his health policy plan. “That’s the path we are on now and the road ahead makes the future for our children less bright and less prosperous.”

Her next line aims to put the criticism in context:

“But Shumlin and the Democrats are all but certain to retain control in November.”

Check out the full story here: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81267.html

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Snelling to Shumlin: Don’t put words in my dead father’s mouth

Posted on September 12, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Randy Brock is accusing Peter Shumlin of twisting his words for political gain, and he’s getting some spirited back-up from former Republican lieutenant governor hopeful Mark Snelling.

At issue is “community rating,” a 21-year-old price-leveling mechanism that doesn’t allow private health care insurers to charge old people more than young people for equivalent policies.

Shumlin on Monday said Brock wants to “undo” community rating. Brock says that’s a lie, and has demanded a retraction from the Democratic incumbent.

So who’s right?  

In a six-page proposal unveiled last week, Brock says reforms to community rating offer one of the quickest routes to cost-containment, especially for younger families inVermont.

The federal Affordable Care Act – a.k.a. ObamaCare – has imposed community-rating standards nationwide. But the federal law allows greater age-based price variance thanVermont does, and Brock proposes going with the more lenient 3-to-1 ratio allowed in the ACA.

Vermont allows no age-based pricing variance whatsoever, something Brock says “requires healthier young families with children and mortgages to subsidize the premiums of their older, sicker, but sometime much wealthier parents.”

Much to Brock’s chagrin, Shumlin on Monday apparently told a crowd of supporters in Burlington that the Republican challenger wants to “repeal” community rating.

“Gov. Shumlin’s announcement speech falsely claimed that my health care vision would repeal Vermont’s community rating,” Brock said in a statement. “This is patently false and today I’m calling on the Governor to retract this false statement.

We weren’t there for the speech in question. But in a meeting with the editorial board at the Rutland Herald Monday, Shumlin said Brock “wants to undo community rating.”

Technically, that’s not true.

But Shumlin’s campaign manager Alex MacLean says a retraction won’t be forthcoming.

“Whether it’s eliminating community rating or decimating it by forcing older Vermonters to pay three times as much as younger Vermonters, it’s a bad idea,” MacLean said this afternoon. “If Randy Brock wants to focus on his plan to dismantle community rating, that’s a discussion we welcome.”

In his critical narrative of Brock’s health care plan, Shumlin has enlisted a former Republican governor.

“Gov Dick Snelling 21 years ago … his last major act of policy in Vermont before he died was to pass community rating,” Shumlin said Monday. “What Brock’s plan does is say, ‘if you’re sick, have a preexisting condition or are disabled, hey, we’re going back to a system where insurance companies can charge you three times as much … That’s the system he wants to go back to.”

In his Burlington speech, Snelling played an even more central role in Shumlin’s diatribe against the Brock proposal.

Snelling of course died in office. His son, Mark Snelling, issued a statement Tuesday demanding that Shumlin “stop wrapping himself in the comfort of Gov. Snelling’s legacy.”

“He even goes on to voice what Gov. Snelling would have said on the subject of community rating,” Snelling said of Shumlin’s speech. “I have made it a practice over the 21 years since my father’s death not to speculate on what he would have done or said if he were alive. No one knows what he would have said and of all people, Peter Shumlin doesn’t have a clue.”

Snelling stepped out  in earnest Tuesday as Brock’s first name-brand political surrogate, offering a blistering indictment of Shumlin’s policies on health care, energy and taxes.

“Let me also be clear about what Governor Snelling he did not do. He did not propose an unproven, fantasy plan for healthcare which will require the largest tax increase inVermont’s history, with no budget and no detailed provisions and just say ‘trust me.’ He did not increase the cost of electricity by forcing energy companies to build expensive and unreliable generation facilities and send the profits to his political supporters,” Snelling said. “I believe Peter Shumlin owes Vermonters an apology and a correction for his misstatement about Sen. Brock’s healthcare plan. I also believe he owes Vermonters and the Snelling family an apology for putting words in Dick Snelling’s mouth 21 years after he passed away. Peter Shumlin’s kick off was a shameful performance.”

 

 

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When Republican super PAC hits airwaves Monday, will Randy Brock get any love?

Posted on September 9, 2012 by | Comments Off

We brought you news last week of the first Republican super PAC to hit Vermont, and that fact that it’s going to spend at least $70,000 over the next couple weeks to push conservative viewpoints. Though we don’t know yet who’s funding “Vermonters First,” the point man for the outfit, Tayt Brooks, said the group will provide a foil to the “single-party” rule dominating Montpelier.

A day after our story broke, Paul Heintz of Seven Days had a great follow-up piece detailing the content of the group’s ads. One spot will tout Republican candidate for auditor Vince Illuzzi. Another is dedicated to the GOP’s candidate for treasurer, Wendy Wilton. You can watch video of the spots at ”Off Message,” a new blog from Heintz and Seven Days political editor, Andy Bromage:  http://7d.blogs.com/offmessage/ 

Does that mean Vermonters First has snubbed the man at the top of the ticket? Perhaps not.

The Illuzzi/Wilton spots are what’s known in the TV business as “bookends” – 15-second spots at the beginning and end of a commercial break.

According to documents on file at WCAX, those spots constitute only a portion of the $53,000 buy by Vermonters First, which includes plenty of 30-second ads as well. An approximately $15,000 buy on WPTZ won’t start until Sept. 17.

We asked Brooks whether we could expect to Randy Brock’s face in those longer spots, but the former executive director of the Vermont Republican Party wouldn’t say. We’ll find out soon enough – the ads begin airing Monday morning.

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Randy Brock unveils his long-awaited health plan. In an email.

Posted on September 6, 2012 by | Comments Off

In an oddly timed press release almost certain to assure underplay in Vermont media outlets, Randy Brock a few minutes ago unveiled the health care proposal he’s been promising since early June.

We anticipated a glitzy, glamorous rollout for the plan, which is, very broadly speaking, a free-market alternative to the single-payer system favored by Gov. Peter Shumlin. Or at least a press conference, to draw TV cameras and front-page headlines, which he easily could have gotten.

Instead, “The Brock Health Care Vision: A 100% Solution,” rolled in unannounced to reporters’ inboxes at a time when many might have already called it a day.

Hard to make heads or tails of the strategy yet, but Brock obviously isn’t looknig to make this plan the cornerstone of his campaign. 

A quick scan of the six-page proposal shows about what Brock had telegraphed: drive down costs by luring more private insurance companies intoVermont. Making them compete for residents’ business, the theory goes, will force them drop their costs.

Critics, of course, say this approach will only erode the quality of the product, and exacerbate the “underinsurance” problem already plaguing the health care system.

Brock says Shumlin’s plan will “lead to rationing through global budgets” and “discourage physicians and dentists from moving toVermont,” among other bad things.

Brock’s plan, fashioned with help from a team of advisors, would allow Vermonters to purchase plans from any state in New England. He also wants to lure more insurance companies into the state by undoing what he says are “unreasonable legal and regulatory restraints.”

Brock also wants to change the rules governing what is known as “community rating,” a mandate that forces insurance companies to fold very low-risk and very high-risk policyholders into the same risk pool. Community rating aims to level out price points, meaning young, healthy people pay more in order to make things affordable for older, sicker patients.

Under the federal Affordable Care Act, private insurers can charge high-risk customers triple what a low-risk consumer would pay for the same policy. Vermont law, however, requires far greater pricing equity.  Dropping Vermont’s standards in favor of the more lenient allowances under federal law, Brock said, would bring premiums to within financial reach of a wider swath of the middle class. 

He said he would institute a variety of mechanisms to help older, higher-risk  people absorb the resulting spike in their premiums.

You can check out the full plan by visiting http://randybrock.com/health-care.

Check out Sunday’s editions of The Times Argus and Rutland Herald for an analysis.

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New Republican PAC set to hit airwaves Monday

Posted on September 6, 2012 by | Comments Off

And the newest player on Vermont’s political scene is about to drop big money to push a conservative agenda on network television stations. 

“Vermonters First,” which registered with the Secretary of State last week, is the first Republican-allied political action committee to dive into the 2012 election. And while it’s still unclear who’s behind the PAC, it’s backers are serious enough to have funded a two-week run of television commercials that will cost at least $70,000 to air. 

“With kind of a one-party rule out there, quite frankly there a lot of Vermonters out there who don’t feel their voices are being heard,” Tayt Brooks, a longtime Republican operative acting at treasurer of the new PAC, said Thursday. “So Vermonters First is an entity that will allow some balance in the discussion … and be able to provide a message to Vermonters and a platform to talk about issues.”

 Brooks won’t say who’s underwriting the group, though the donors will become public when Vermonters First files its campaign-finance disclosure with the Secretary of State on Sept. 15, the next filing deadline.

 “You’ll obviously see that when we file that information,” he said.

 Mike Schrimpf, communications director for the Republican Governors Association, wouldn’t say whether his organization – which spent nearly $1 million to try to get Brian Dubie elected in 2010 – is behind thePAC.

“The RGA has a policy of not discussing or previewing its campaign strategy so as to not tip our hands to our opponents,” Schrimpf said in an email Thursday. “I can tell you that we are closely monitoring the race and believe that Randy Brock is an excellent candidate who has the right experience to be a successful governor.”  

Brooks, who formerly served as executive director of the Vermont Republican Party and was a commissioner in the administration of Republican Gov. James Douglas, wouldn’t comment on the content of the commercials, or whether they’ll lionize Randy Brock, or attack Peter Shumlin.

“I’m not going to get into the specifics,” he said. “Obviously we’ll be out there with a message, talking about questions that have been raised.”

He did say that Vermonters First will be focused on hot-button political issues likely to be of interest to voters in November, namely health care and taxes.

“Health care and how we’re going to pay for it is one concern – the billions of dollars in new taxes that are going to have to be raised if this new single-payer health care policy is put into place,” Brooks said. “And you’re looking at property taxes that continue to increase out there as student enrollment goes down.”

Under the new campaign-finance regime inVermont, political action committees that don’t coordinate with candidates are permitted to raise unlimited sums from individual donors.

Vermonters First will be able to avail itself of the new rules.

“We’re going to be doing independent expenditures and will not be coordinating with candidates and will not be coordinating with state parties or other political parties out there,” said Brooks, who now runs his own consulting firm, called Brooks Strategies.

According to documents filed with WCAX, the advertisements are scheduled to begin running on Sept. 10 – the same day Shumlin launches his reelection campaign.

The group has spent $54,000 to run 140 spots on WCAX over a two-week period. The 30-second commercials will run during everything from The Price is Right to the CBS Evening News.

Vermonters First will spend another $10,000 to $15,000 on a one-week ad buy at WPTZ, according to paperwork filed there.

As for future expenditures, Brooks said we’ll have to wait and see.

“There are a lot of issues that Vermonters care deeply about,” Brook said. “And it’s important we ensure that Vermonters have a real robust discussion.”

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