Notes from Montpelier
by Rep. Bill Frank

I enjoyed talking with so many of you at Town Meeting this year, thank you for great conversations.  For the past 41 years Senator Bill Doyle has done an informal Town Meeting Survey.  He asks questions of general interest to all Vermonters like “Should drivers be prohibited from using cell phones while driving?”  This year 164 Underhill residents answered the poll, 139 from Jericho and 53 from Bolton.  Senator Doyle has not tallied all the surveys but Rep. Till and I have counted the 356 surveys from Underhill, Jericho and Bolton; you can see the result at my web site www.RepBillFrank.com.  By the way, 68% survey takers responded yes to the question to prohibit using cell phones while driving.  For those of us who live in Underhill we will meet again Saturday, April 4^th to approve the town budget for next year.

As I have talked about before, my personal special interest in the legislature this year is to pass legislation ensuring that all Vermonters have knowledge and access to Palliative Care.  I worked last session to get a bill passed to have a summer/fall legislative study committee.  I was a co-chair of this committee and was pleasantly surprised how many people came to our committee meetings to testify and tell us what is working and what is not working in Vermont in the Palliative Care area.  I made sure the House Human Services Committee heard testimony from many people on Palliative Care.  Just before our Town Meeting break we created a committee bill that addresses the major areas of concern.  I expect the Human Services committee to complete work on this bill by March 20.  There are nine major areas to this draft bill including:  Purpose and Definition, Patients’ Bill of Rights and Right to Information, Medicaid Waiver for Pediatric Palliative Care, Inclusion of Palliative Care in the Blueprint for Health, Adding Treatment of Pain to Scope of Practice Statutes, Continuing Medical Education, Expanding the Advance Directive Registry, Clarifying Confusing Language on Calculation of Penalties, and Reporting Requirements.  The draft bill is available on the legislative web site at www.leg.state.vt.us.  I would like to hear any comments you have on this important topic and this bill.

Rep. George Till and I will be at the Deborah Rawson Memorial Library Thursday evening, April 2^nd from 6:30-8:00 pm.  If you are able please come and share your thoughts and questions with us.   We are open to talking about any topic you would like to bring up.  I’m sure most topics will invoke a discussion among all us.  Please plan to join us.   Tuesday, May 5 will be the next session, same time and same place.