Lyndon- Vermont Representative, Peter Welch held an important community outreach forum today at the Grindstone Cafe in Lyndonville. He broached on different issues such as health care, social security, internet access and secondary education
One of the biggest questions asked related to the rising cost of health insurance, and Welch says, although the recent healthcare bill that was passed will increase access to healthcare; the price is still to high.
"Prescription drugs are starting to explode in their cost, and anyone of us who have ever been to a hospital and get a bill, you can’t understand them and you can’t understand how high they are, and on top of that you can’t understand them because theres the charge, and theres the offset, and then theres the insurance discount, so it’s not anything that transparent,” Welch says. “The cost side requires much more restructuring in health care, because whether you have whether it’s all government paid, single payer, all insurance, or all employer, if the cost is out of control then we’re not going to be able to keep up with it.”
One anonymous community member asked“ why don’t we take the cap off of the earning that people need to contribute to FICA (Federal Insurance Contributions Act) so that whether you earn $1,500 dollars a year or $15-million dollars a year you are still paying into social security, so that when you are 62 and you go to collect, you would not get money that was put into the pot?".
The federal law requires you to withhold taxes from paid wages, the tax is comprised of a six point two percent social security tax, as well as a one point five percent medicare tax.
With the cost of higher education increasing, Welch also discussed different ways to reduce the amount that students would need to pay back, mostly by letting borrowers take loans with lower interest rates.
“It's really tough for younger people, kids are getting out of college with the equivalent of a mortgage,” says the Vermont Represenative. “The stafford loans and the pell grants were low interest, but now they’re becoming high interest.
Other topics that brought up, were related to the presidential race, and Welch made it clear that he doesn’t support the polices of the Republicans, and he is both a Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders supporter.
“There is terrible rhetoric on the Republican side, like banning people on the basis of their religion, or endorsing torture, literally saying that they will order our military people to do something they would never do, and violate military conduct, which they probably would abide by, even when its at peril to themselves. I think we have very good canidates, and I’m very much a supporter of Bernie, but I have a lot of respect for Hilary and folks,” he says.
Welch will continue to spread community outreach throughout the state. For a list of where he’ll be you can visit his Facebook Page.
WELCH IN LYNDON from NewsLINC on Vimeo.