[R]epublican lawmakers are calling for a federal investigator to review Vermont’s spending to implement the Affordable Care Act.
The minority leaders of both chambers told the media in December that they would send a letter requesting that the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services investigate whether federal money was used inappropriately in developing Vermont Health Connect.
Two months later, following suggestions that economist Jonathan Gruber may have overbilled the state for the work of a research assistant, House Minority Leader Rep. Don Turner, R-Milton, said in a statement that now is the “appropriate time” to send the letter.
Though Gruber worked on Vermont’s suspended single payer program, Republicans see the management of his contract and issues surrounding contracting for Vermont Health Connect as a failure by Gov. Peter Shumlin to provide “leadership and transparency in health care reform.”
Senate Minority Leader Sen. Joe Benning, R-Caledonia, applauded State Auditor Doug Hoffer for scrutinizing Gruber’s contract after he and other lawmakers brought issues with the invoices to Hoffer’s attention.
“The nutshell is I wanted you folks to know that Republicans were out in front on this question, and we are very happy that Mr. Hoffer chose to do a performance audit and we are calling on the attorney general now to follow through with that to decide if anything more formal should be done with respect to Mr. Gruber,” Benning said Tuesday.
A year ago, Benning and Turner sent a letter to former U.S. Attorney Tristram Coffin asking that he enlist federal support to investigate fraud allegations at Vermont Health Connect.
“We have to assume that is still being looked into, although oddly enough, whenever you ask for an official investigation, they are not at liberty to do anything afterward to tell you exactly what the status of that investigation is,” Benning said.
However, records obtained by VTDigger show that Vermont Health Connect is being audited by the Office of the Inspector General. A Jan. 29 internal memo notes that the OIG’s audit was “entering into Financial scope.”
OIG’s involvement was first reported when Hoffer announced in April that his office was exploring an audit of Vermont Health Connect. At the time, Hoffer said he would coordinate with the OIG, who was also looking into the exchange, to ensure efforts weren’t duplicated.
The internal memo notes that Hoffer’s audit is “scheduled to wrap up in March.” It shows that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is conducting a “Programmatic Audit.” That may be part of normal federal oversight of state-based exchanges, but it brings the total of ongoing governmental audits to three.
Vermont has spent well over $100 million building its exchange, which is still incomplete and the source of frustration for many required to use it. Customers continue to have trouble changing their information, getting the proper invoice and canceling plans, among other issues.
At a Tuesday news conference, Shumlin did not address his administration’s record in handling health reform contracts broadly, but he did defend its handling of Gruber’s.
Shumlin acknowledged that it was a situation where the “invoice should have reflected the contract,” but he argued that it was nonetheless well managed. His health reform team was in daily contact with Gruber, and there’s no doubt the specified work was completed, he said.
Furthermore, Vermont was able to leverage the public relations firestorm surrounding Gruber at the time to renegotiate his contract downward, and the state has to this point paid him less than half of what was in the original contract.
“We renegotiated the contract because we felt that we should pay less than what was contracted for based upon the developments since we contracted with him going forward, that’s what a good manager does,” Shumlin said.
