Vermont decision -makers face a question of $ 200 million.
This is the quantity of expenses – according to the Green Mountain Care Board – that the state health care system will have to cut in order to keep Blue Cross Blue Shield increases in Vermont bonuses at around 5% in 2026.
It is a great demand and a short chronology. Earlier this week, Blue Cross Blue Shield published his Increase in premiums offered For 2026: 13.7% for plans in small groups and 23.3% for individual plans. Without significant cost savings in the coming months, these figures will probably remain.
Legislators are working on several measures to reduce health care costs. But many of these initiatives – such as pricing based on references, a system that caps the quantity of hospitals can invoice for procedures and an invoice to reduce the cost of building or renovating installations – are for years to bear fruit.
Earlier this month, representative Lori Houghton, D-Essex Junction, presented an amendment to a major bill, S.126Intended to reduce spending on the Vermont health care system faster.
The initial amendment, Dated May 2 would have forced the social services agency to “coordinate the efforts of hospitals” to reduce the spending of the Vermont hospital by 10% during their financial year 2026, which begins on October 1.
The following week, the The language had been softened: The agency “would facilitate collaboration and coordination” to help suppliers “identify opportunities” to improve health services and reduce expenses by 5%.
A day later, legislators reduced this savings objective: to only 2.5%. This figure is still in the most recent version of the bill, which was put forward by the Credit Committee of the Chamber on Friday afternoon.
In an interview last week, Houghton said that the initial objective of a 10% reduction in health care expenses would in fact increase to $ 400 million – twice the number that the Breen Mountain Care Board asked. The legislators therefore cut it to 5%, which is $ 200 million.
“Then, for various reasons – just people (not being), and I don’t know how they can do it – we have transformed it to 2.5%,” said Houghton.
But whatever the number, legislation is not intended to force health establishments to reduce spending: “There is no mandate,” said Houghton.
“Often, when we adopt legislation, it is the intention that is important, right?” She said. “And this is also the fact that we need Vermonters to see that we are all trying to find a solution to this really immediate problem.”
– Peter d’Auria
Aware
Vermont is on the right track to reach a growing list of states that have prohibited class smartphones.
This week, the legislators of a key committee have advanced legislation that would require all public school districts and independent schools to develop policies prohibiting students from the use of smartphones And other personal devices such as smart watches during the school day. Policies should take effect by school year 2026-2027.
A prohibition of school cell phone has already been introduced in an autonomous invoice It failed to advance this legislative session. But Thursday, the members of the Senate of Education Committee voted to graft the ban H.480A various education bill which includes several smaller adjustments to the laws on the education of Vermont.
Now, with large support in both chambers, legislators hope to send the bill to the office of Governor Phil Scott by the end of the session.
Learn more about the new language of the bill here.
– Habib Sabet
Governor Phil Scott issued His third veto of the sessionrejecting H.219A bill that would oblige the ministry of correctional services to deploy a program offering free family support services to parents and tutors incarcerated through state prisons. (Scott too oppose his veto with two versions of the bill on the budget for the financial year 2025.)
Scott wrote A letter explaining his decision Thursday, that he supported the intention of the bill but not a specific language which would oblige his administration to put funding for the program in future budgetary proposals in the Legislative Assembly. Such a requirement violates the constitution of the state, he said.
Veto may not matter, because funding to manage programs for parents imprisoned in two state prisons has already been included in the 2026 budget bill, that the Chamber and the Senate Both approved this week. Scott also supports this funding, he said in his veto letter.
The representative Troy Headrick, an independent of Burlington who sponsored H.219, said on Friday in an interview that Scott also expressed his support for the intention of the legislators, also presented in the bill, so that the administration extended the program to all state prisons by 2028.
Legislators can rework part of the language that Scott opposed H.219 in the remaining weeks of this year’s session, Headrick said, or could resume legislation at the start of next year’s session.
– Shaun Robinson
Moving
A key senatorial committee Advanced the bill on the historical education of the legislature Thursday, but not before almost all the members of the committee expressed their discomfort with the legislation.
“I do not remember having been as bad about a vote as me on this one, but that will make us advance,” said senator Ann Cumming H.454.
The bill offers generational changes to the Vermont and finance Systems that were going to pass through several years, including the consolidation of school districts and a new formula for financing education, but leave key points of key decision for the future.
Find out more about the version of the Senate of the Education Reform Bill here.
– Ethan Weinstein
The Senate passed Friday H.1A bill which would eliminate a requirement from the law of the State according to which the two internal ethical panels of the Assembly Consult the State Ethics Commission on the cases in which legislators are accused of potential fault.
The legislators argued that the requirement of consultation, being part of A set of radical modifications To the laws on state ethics promulgated in 2024, raped from the separation of the powers guaranteed in the Constitution of the State. But the proposal made a repeated opposition from the Ethics Commission, which argued that it could be the beginning of a slippery slope of renegation of the responsibility measures of last year.
The bill will now return to the House to examine the changes in the Senate.
– Shaun Robinson
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