Two bills — one in the House and one in the Senate — are taking another stab at pushing up the date for a financing plan for Green Mountain Care to September, before the gubernatorial election.
Sen. Randy Brock, R-Franklin, proposed an amendment last year to do the same thing, but it failed by a large margin in the overwhelmingly Democratic Senate.
Brock said he hopes to have more success this time.
Read the House legislation, H.539.
The financing for Green Mountain Care has become a hot-button political issue as the state trudges through health care reform. As part of Act 48, last year’s health care reform law, financing plans for the revamped health care system are due in January 2013.
“When you talk informally, I think a lot of people have the same concern about all the unanswered questions,” Brock said. “The sooner we get those questions answered the better.”
The big unanswered question is: How do you pay for health care reform?
The Vermont Legislative Joint Fiscal Office and the Department of Banking, Insurance, Securities and Health Care Administration released a report in November estimating the costs of the state’s current health care system compared to to a reformed system. That report estimated savings between $553 million and $1.8 billion between 2014 and 2020.
While Act 48 mandated that the administration (BISHCA) and the non-partisan Joint Fiscal Office produce the report together, Brock and Rep. Jim Eckhardt, R-Chittenden, who was the primary sponsor of a parallel House bill, say there needs to be more independent analysis.
Brock, who is running for governor, does not deny the political undertones of the legislation. He said, with all the holidays between September and January, the administration is not likely to see a quantum of improvement in the level of knowledge and analysis during that time period.
“We need to get on with it, and we need to give people answers,” Brock said.
Eckhardt, who has garnered support from two Democrats — George Till and Cynthia Browning — said he wants the Joint Fiscal Office to hire an independent contractor to address the financing for health care reform.
“We’re not getting an objective point of view,” Eckhardt said.
He said he is concerned the Joint Fiscal Office is too tight with the Shumlin administration, and things are moving so fast that voters are being left out of the conversation.
Robin Lunge, Vermont director of health care reform, said the process of developing financing plans for both Green Mountain Care and for a health benefits exchange, which is required under federal law, will take some time.
First, she said, “we can’t come up with a financing system until we know what we’re paying for.”
The state needs to design a benefit package, and it needs more guidance from the feds to do this. It also needs to get feedback from the Green Mountain Care Board on the costs of the benefit package through a public process.
Developing the financing plan is a multi-step process, Lunge said, and if the state is going to do it well, it will take time.
