Vermont legislators seek to implement new monitoring measures in hospitals and limit the quantity of care, proposals that would considerably change the way the largest state health care providers can work.
Friday, the health care committees of the legislative assembly voted by large margins to advance the bills which would strengthen the Green Mountain Care Board, a health regulator and strengthen its capacity to supervise prices, to obtain data and to make changes to hospital governance.
In general, the two bills represent an effort to curb costs, increase financial transparency and consolidate Vermont Trembling health care institutionsSenator Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden Southeast, president of the Senate Health and Well-Being Committee, said in an interview on Friday.
“The most important thing is that we are trying to get out of the health care crisis in which we are,” said Lyons.
Lots of Vermont Health care entities find it difficult to reach both ends and patients are faced with the increase in costs and long waiting lists.
The bills also reflect what Vermont’s health care defender Mike Fisher described as an increasing concern concerning the role of the University of Vermont Health Network in the state health care ecosystem.
As costs increase and health care facilities are becoming more and more fragile, the network has recently made a meticulous examination and criticisms for Cup servicesmove money between Vermont and New York hospitals and pay several million dollars executive bonus.
“I hear a lot of skepticism on the part of the legislators on how money crosses the health network and its impact on the health care system,” said Fisher. “And I think this is apparent by the language that is considered.”
Annie Mackin, spokesperson for the University of Vermont health network, said in an email that “Vermont has the most transparent and rigorously regulated non-profit health care system in the country”.
The network also shares “the objective of making health care more affordable, and (recognizes) that we are in accessibility access and crisis,” she said.
In the Senate
The Senate sprawling bill, 32 pages in His most recent projectDirect the Care Council to be implemented Price based on referenceA saving model in which the prices that hospitals charge private insurance companies are set at health insurance prices.
This will also allow state officials and health care managers to write a “state healthcare service plan” by 2029, including overall care objectives, expected costs and resource benefits to the Vermont health care system – and would allow advice to “correct any aspect of the structure of a hospital network or its financial operations” which does not aligning this plan.
The bill would also oblige hospitals to submit more financial information to the Green Mountain Care Board and oblige hospitals to inform state officials and legislators before reducing or reducing services to comply with their budgets.
And legislation would force the Council to examine the wages and bonuses of hospital leaders and compare them to those of practitioners – provisions that come in the wake of news that managers of the UVM health network have received $ 3 million as a bonus While reducing patient services last year.
Lyons, president of the Senate health committee, said on Friday that she and other legislators were concerned about some of the prices and financial practices of the network.
“We want to start building a system that has greater equity in all areas, and which offers sustainability to suppliers, and will help patients be able to access the care they need,” she said.
Testimony In the Senate this week, Devon Green, an internal lobbyist for the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, expressed its support for certain payment reforms, but said that the organization would still need more information on the plans.
It has also opposed certain provisions which strengthen the mandate of the Green Mountain Care Board to obtain data from hospitals. In some cases, she noted, hospitals are already required to provide such information to the board of directors-and in others, she said, the language of the bill would give the Council of poorly defined and too fine powers.
“There are initiatives like the work we take together to find a path to go on the prices based on the references that we consider progress,” said Green in an email on Friday. “There are of course other aspects of these links that are concerned with us. We will continue to work with the legislators, the Green Mountain Care Board, AHS and others to strengthen these bills. »»
In the house
The shorter house bill would allow the board to reduce the reimbursement rates paid by an insurer to hospitals if the insurer “faces an acute and immediate threat to its solvency”. This new power would only apply to hospitals or networks with positive operating margins and 135 days in cash.
Last week, the biggest private insurer in Vermont, Blue Cross Blue Shield, announcement That he lost $ 62 million in 2024. It was the largest annual deficit in three consecutive years of losses, said the Blue Cross administrators, reflecting an increase of 15.5% of its claim costs in the previous year.
This will probably mean a two -figure increase in bonuses for 2026, Sara Teachout, an internal lobbyist for Blue Cross, said in a media call last week.
The bill would also allow the Board of Directors to appoint an outside observer if he noted that a hospital had “made an important false declaration” to the board of directors or was “materially non -compliant” with a budgetary order.
Representative Alyssa Black, D-Essex, president of the health care health care committee, said the legislation was “in response to a crisis in which we are at the moment” in a brief interview on Friday.
“What has motivated is the very real insolvency of the only health insurance domiciled in Vermont,” Black said.
Mike del Trecco, president and chief executive officer of the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, said their bill on Friday morning to “support”.
“I deeply understand the severity of the problems and the fragile nature of our delivery system, as well as the problems of affordability that we face, and I can assure you that our hospitals work deeply on these problems,” said Del Trecco.
The reduction in reimbursement rates, however, effectively derived hospitals money – and, Del Trecco said: “If we just take it from a source, we will create a situation where we can put hospitals in danger of failure and closing.”
But Owen Foster, president of the Green Mountain Care Board, told the legislators of the Chamber on Friday morning that their legislation was a crucial tool to strengthen the state health care system.
“The Vermont at the moment is like a large gigantic dysfunctional family who was rich, and now,” Foster told the committee on Friday morning. “And we have real problems.”