by Hamilton E.Davis

   Anya Rader Wallack, the lead designer of Vermont’s single payer health care reform initiative, has been selected by Rhode Island governor-elect Gina Raimondo to run that state’s Obamacare insurance exchange, according to sources in Rhode Island.
   The move by Wallack would be the first loss for Gov. Peter Shumlin of the team that has run health care in Vermont since 2011. She was the first chairperson of the Green Mountain Care Board, and has served as a consultant to the Shumlin project since she stepped down as chair last year. She has also been in charge of administering the $45 million federal grant to support Vermont reform.
   She will have to sever all her formal ties with the Shumlin administration if she becomes employed by the incoming Rhode Island administration. An irony in the situation is that managing an Obamacare exchange is the lone element in the Vermont reform effort that Wallack had nothing to do with.
   Wallack’s move comes in the wake of Shumlin’s decision to drop his effort to finance his single payer project in the upcoming session of the legislature. Shumlin has said that health care reform will continue in the efforts of the Green Mountain Care Board to contain costs in the health care delivery system.

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