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April 19, 2025

Happy Spring,

The biggest issue we are facing is the looming federal debacle - cutbacks, uncertainty, tariffs, and upcoming cuts to Medicaid and other programs. A partial list of what has already been cut or frozen is here. Related to this is the extrajudicial incarceration of legal residents of Vermont – for an excellent overview on this scary development and what our laws are, please read this piece by my colleague Laura Sibilia here. It is hard to overstate the disruption to our economy and to the constitution that we are facing. I will comment more on this in the coming weeks.

At the state level, it was a relatively slow week in Montpelier after the big push to get the education reform bill over to the Senate last week. There were two bills of note:

·         S27 - An act relating to medical debt relief and excluding medical debt from credit reports. This bill will make life easier for those suffering under the burden of medical debt, which is a hidden aspect of our broken disease care system (it is not a health care system).

·         S28 - An act relating to access to certain legally protected health care services. This bill added necessary protections to reproductive health providers in Vermont.

One of the important issues we are working on is protecting kids from the addictive harms of social media. (For a deep dive on this, read The Anxious Generation). This is a bigger issue than most of us realize. Not only is there overwhelming data about the negative mental health affects of social media and phone use, but kids are dying of suicide and overdose due directly to social media use. We saw an excellent documentary on this topic about a rogue law firm that is trying to stand up to the social media giants. This is a powerful and sad film, please watch it: Can’t Look Away. There are two bills on this topic:

·         S69 - An act relating to an age-appropriate design code. The so-called Kids Code bill is an important effort to protect our children from the more harmful effects of social media.

·         S21 - An act relating to cell phone-free schools. This is a bill I am passionate about. It is a simple way to improve the mental health of our kids, improve the school environment and reduce mental health costs over time. The testimonials of kids and teachers from schools that have already done this are powerful. It is a true no downside no brainer bill in my view.

A few weeks ago I mentioned that the House passed H91, An act relating to the Vermont Homeless Emergency Assistance and Responsive Transition to Housing Program. There is a comprehensive VT Digger article on this bill and topic if you want more information.

As always, please let me know if you have questions, concerns or thoughts.

Enjoy the holiday weekend,

Chris Morrow

 

 

 

H91

Kids Code

 

Can’t Look Away

s21 – phone free schools

 

 

s27 medical debt relief

 

An act relating to access to certain legally protected health care services

 

 

 
 

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