IRASBURG — Dr. Ron Holland, the senior emergency physician at North Country Hospital, announced his candidacy for the Vermont House of Representatives to represent the citizens of Irasburg, Coventry, Newport City, Newport Town and Troy.
He filed the required petition with the District Clerk in Newport yesterday.
“I’ve been practicing medicine since 1972, and every day I see both the successes and failures of the health-care system,” Holland said. “A revolution in healthcare is impossible. Instead, we need a health care system that can learn and gradually decrease costs and increase effectiveness. With my years of experience in both medicine and policy analysis, I have decided that it is time to reframe the debate so that health care providers, not politicians, can improve the system.”
Dr. Holland began practicing medicine in Orleans County in 1979. After completing an Internal Medicine Residency at the University of Vermont, he opened a primary care practice in Barton.
Since 1989 he has practiced emergency medicine and completed a graduate program in health policy at Harvard University and a National Library of Medicine Fellowship in decision and policy analysis at Tufts University.
He has professional publications on the cost-effectiveness of health care interventions.
His analysis on the placement of dialysis facilities in Vermont was the basis for state approval for the “Ron Holland, M.D. Community Dialysis Facility” at North Country Hospital that garnered federal, state and community support.
The facility celebrated its tenth anniversary this week.
He also performed a cost-effectiveness analysis of the Lowell Wind Project that demonstrated that this project is eight times more costly than other options to reduce carbon emissions.
He says ridgeline wind projects generate generous profits for developers but are far too expensive as options for meaningful carbon emission reduction, even without consideration of the damage they do to ridgeline ecosystems.
Dr. Holland and his wife Laurie live in Irasburg. Their family includes four children, Abe, Larson, Jesse, and Althea.
He also has five horses, two dogs, and a barn cat.
Need people like you who are knowledgable about the health care system, insurance, medicare, etc.
It’s ridiculous that the government requires that caregivers who provide over 40 hours a week receive double pay. That means a patient must get several caregivers in order to have full time care.
Although I live in Morgan and can’t v0te f0r you, I can wish you good luck.
Pat Hunt