On Jan. 24, the Shumlin administration plans to unveil a financing plan for the publicly financed health care system it hopes to implement in 2017.
Conducted by the University of Massachusetts Medical School, the financing plan was originally set to land on legislators’ desks by Jan. 15. But Director of Health Care Reform Robin Lunge said the date was pushed back to coincide with Gov. Peter Shumlin’s budget address.
Shumlin’s unveiling of the “Big Bill,” as it’s often called, has been delayed until Jan. 24 because the administration is waiting for the latest revenue reports from the state’s economists at the Emergency Board meeting on Jan. 23.
In addition to the single-payer financing plan for a universal health care system, the administration also plans to unveil an UMass financing plan for portions of the state’s new health benefit exchange, Vermont Health Connect. The new health insurance marketplace is scheduled to take full effect on Jan. 1, 2014.
The financing plan will pertain directly to governor’s budget address, Lunge said.
Two financing challenges for running the exchange are: how to fund its projected operating costs of $15 million to $20 million annually and how to provide affordable coverage to Vermonters who earn 133 percent to 300 percent of the federal poverty level. Residents who fall within that bracket will go into the exchange with higher out-of-pocket costs because they will no longer receive state-subsidies.
The same week of Shumlin’s budget address, Lunge said, the state’s contracted vendor for the exchange, CGI, is planning to show legislators a preliminary version of the exchange. Representatives from the tech giant will take legislators through a demo of how the exchange will operate and provide testimony on the exchange’s design.
In mid-December, the state signed a $36 million deal with the Canadian-based multinational, which included a two-year option to re-up that would bring the total to $51 million. CGI is designing the U.S. government’s federal exchange for states that aren’t creating their own exchanges, and the company is also designing exchanges for Massachusetts, Colorado and Hawaii.
