MONTPELIER, Vt. – The Vermont teachers union is putting $80,000 and all its political might into Gov. Peter Shumlin’s effort to bring single-payer health care to the Green Mountain State.

The Vermont-NEA is using financial support from its parent organization – the National Education Association – to spend $80,000 in the next six months to resurrect Vermont Leads, a single-payer advocacy organization based in Montpelier originally founded by the Service Employees International Union in 2012, Vermont Public Radio reports.

The move is seemingly more about the NEA’s far-left political ideology than any benefit its members might receive from the shift to government health care. Most of Vermont-NEA’s 12,000 members already receive top-notch health insurance benefits and would likely pay more than they currently do under the governor’s plan, according to the news station.

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The Vermont-NEA also has quite a grip on the state’s insurance market through its health insurance arm Vermont Education Health Initiative, which covers 40,000 residents including most of its members.

Regardless, the Vermont-NEA is already gauging the public’s perception of a government-run health insurance system with the help of the Boston polling firm Kaley & Company. A $35,000 NEA-commissioned poll found a majority of state residents favor a single-payer system, even after they learn they might pay a lot more for it, VPR reports.

“According to the poll … 51 percent of survey respondents say they support single payer, even when told that it might result in the largest tax increase in state history,” the news station reports. “Forty-three percent said they opposed the plan.”

Peter Sterling, director of Vermont Leads, told VPR, “The most important conclusion from the poll I think is that consistently Vermonters support moving toward a universal, publicly funded health care system, even when it’s described as the largest tax increase in history, even when they realize they may not personally benefit.”

The Vermont-NEA expects to lobby lawmakers about the single-payer plan over the next several months and through the 2014 election. Shumlin’s publicly funded health care plan is expected to be voted on by the Legislature after the election.

It’s clear the Vermont-NEA believes the push for government health insurance will set the tone for other states that consider a similar system. If the unions succeed in Vermont, there’s no doubt the NEA will look to expand the same type of system to other states, or on a federal level.

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“We know that the rest of the country is looking at Vermont to see how well it does,” Martha Allen, president of the Vermont-NEA, told VPR. “And if we don’t make it work, I don’t know where it will be able to work.”