[T]he governor touts his budget writing and political-picking skills, the head of the House Appropriations Committee breathes a sigh of relief, and Rep. Peter Welch decries the high cost of prescription drugs in this week’s edition of “Inside the Golden Bubble.”
Gov. Peter Shumlin presented his final budget Thursday afternoon. Reaction was mixed, with some lawmakers happy the increase was roughly 3.5 percent, a smaller rise than in past years. Lawmakers complained there wasn’t much detail. Two proposals — cutting some pregnant women from Medicaid and moving them to the state’s health care exchange, and taxing dentists and some doctors — drew immediate sharp criticism.
“I do think it’s sometimes forgotten that we’ve been an incredibly fiscally responsible administration,” Shumlin said in his ceremonial office Friday morning.
During the 25-minute interview, Shumlin defended his plan to move some pregnant women off the Medicaid rolls.
“When you first look at it, you say what is this,” Shumlin said, agreeing it was a “bad headline” but maintaining that once lawmakers got “into the weeds, it probably makes a lot of sense.”
Within an hour after the interview concluded, he had dumped the plan, telling his administration to find the $4 million in projected savings elsewhere. New information, his spokesman, Scott Coriell, said.
The governor applauded the low number of uninsured Vermonters and said Act 46, the education law being reviewed by the Legislature, was “working better than my wildest dreams.”
Shumlin also patted himself on the back for his ability to look into the political crystal ball a year ago and know Donald Trump would be leading the Republican presidential field.
People have never been so “angry and discouraged,” he said.
Shumlin stumped for Hillary Clinton the week before in Iowa but didn’t think he had much impact and said he’ll never bad-mouth Bernie Sanders.
Upstairs in the House Appropriations Committee room, Chairwoman Mitzi Johnson, D-South Hero, said the initial reaction to the governor’s budget was relief.
“We were kind of split between: ‘Wow, that wasn’t as bad as we thought it might be’ to ‘What are we missing, what bomb is hidden that we haven’t found?’” she said.
She said there would be “plenty of discussion” about the Medicaid proposal (still on the table), whether to close the St. Johnsbury work camp and whether to change the rules around medicating involuntary mental health patients.
One thing Johnson appreciated was the integrity of the numbers. She said in past years some of the numbers were too puffed up or unrealistically low. She’s served on the budget writing committee as a member and now chairwoman for a total of 10 years.
“I think the numbers the governor used to put the budget together are very realistic, and I haven’t said that always,” Johnson said. Whether the committee will agree to the policy behind the numbers, she said, was a different story and “to be determined.”
Downstairs, Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., sat in his former office at the Vermont Statehouse, that of the Senate president pro tem. Welch was back from Washington to testify about the high cost of pharmaceuticals.
“Prescription drugs are life-extending and pain-relieving,” he said. “But the pharmaceutical companies are killing us with the cost.”
Speaker of the House Shap Smith, D-Morrisville, and Chittenden County State’s Attorney T.J. Donovan, a candidate for attorney general, have said they want to pursue the manufacturers of addictive painkilling drugs for flooding the market.
Welch seemed disinclined to pursue the issue.
“I don’t know if there’s a basis for that,” he said.
