Top Republicans say firing the Canadian company that was building the state’s health insurance website was long overdue and state officials who oversaw the botched rollout of Vermont Health Connect might need to be fired.
Lt. Gov. Phil Scott and two Republican legislative leaders held a press conference at the Statehouse Tuesday to respond to Monday’s news that the state is ending its contract with CGI in September.
GOP leaders said they want to know if the problems with Vermont Health Connect were the result of bad management or technical difficulties.
Scott called CGI’s firing “welcome news,” and said it should have happened six months ago. The Shumlin administration notified him only a few hours beforehand, he said.
House and Senate minority leaders Rep. Don Turner, R-Milton, and Sen. Joe Benning, R-Caledonia, said they were blindsided by the news Monday.
“We want to see that people that were involved in this process, whether it be all CGI’s fault or just the administration, we think that there needs to be a real scrubbing of what happened before we go forth,” Turner said.
Pressed on whether the people who were in charge, namely Mark Larson, commissioner of the Department of Vermont Health Access, which was responsible for building the exchange, should be fired, Turner said he wants more information before making that judgement.
Gov. Peter Shumlin said last month that he does not plan to make any changes in the leadership for health care reform and that it is his responsibility to fix Vermont Health Connect.
Benning called on journalists to investigate the state’s rollout of Vermont Health Connect to give legislators more facts.
“You guys have the golden opportunity of being the investigative arm,” Benning said.
The federal Affordable Care Act allows states to create their own exchanges or to use the federal exchange. Vermont chose to build its own, but the website has been plagued with problems, many of which CGI proved unable to fix.
After the news conference, Lawrence Miller, chief of health care reform for the Shumlin administration, defended the health care reform staff, and said he doesn’t want to fire anyone, especially because so much “tuition money” has been invested in the people who have helped to build the exchange.
Miller said he plans to release more details about the state’s contract with Optum, which has been hired to finish the work. Optum was initially tapped to clear a backlog of cases. His office also issued a news release Tuesday before the GOP press conference outlining other changes to the health exchange.
Scott said the press conference was meant to be constructive, not political.
“I want this exchange to work,” he said.
Scott suggested Vermont join with other New England states to create a more competitive health care system with potentially lower prices.
Miller said that would require other states to have identical health insurance regulations, which they do not.
Scott also said Vermont should reach out to Nevada and other states that also have fired CGI to learn from their experiences.
The lieutenant governor suggested the state consider delaying the 2016 deadline for larger businesses to enroll their employees through the exchange. The state has already extended the deadline for small businesses but should delay that next round of businesses, Scott said.
Turner said the exchange should be voluntary, allowing people a choice of where to buy their insurance and creating more competition.
The legislators and lieutenant governor also discussed the state’s goal of creating a statewide health care system known as single-payer.
They made clear that single payer and the health care exchange are separate projects and problems with the exchange don’t preclude single-payer from being implemented.
Scott said technical problems with the website don’t mean single-payer can’t work, but he did say, “Single payer isn’t ready for primetime in this decade.”
Problems with Vermont Health Connect should make the state think twice about its plans for single-payer, Benning said.
“The biggest train we’ve ever faced is still coming down the tracks as we try to prepare the bridge,” Benning said.
Benning added that he still wants to see a plan this winter on how the Shumlin administration plans to pay for single-payer.
Benning commended Rep. Cynthia Browning, D-Arlington, for her work demanding information from the Shumlin administration about its plans for financing single-payer.
