[T]he state Senate wants to slow down efforts to make health insurance coverage mandatory in Vermont.
Senators on Wednesday voted to approve a version of H.696 that establishes a working group to study how the state would administer and enforce an individual health insurance mandate.
But the Senate decided that the state’s mandate shouldn’t start Jan. 1, as had been called for in the House version of the bill. Sen. Michael Sirotkin, D-Chittenden, said that’s too soon given that the state doesn’t yet know how to penalize those who don’t buy insurance.
“What the (House) sent us over had very admirable goals,” Sirotkin said. “But, unfortunately, it is the opinion of the Senate Finance Committee that the solution to meeting those goals was flawed.”
H.696 was spurred by action taken last year at the federal level.
Technically, there is still a federal mandate to buy health insurance. But a tax overhaul approved by Congress eliminates the financial penalty associated with that mandate as of next year, which will make it unenforceable.
That could cause some to drop their health insurance, which could lead to an increase in premiums for those who retain coverage.
A study commissioned by the Green Mountain Care Board and the state Department of Financial Regulation says the lack of a federal mandate won’t wreak immediate havoc in Vermont. But the study does project a drop in insurance enrollment and a resulting premium increase for those with certain types of insurance plans.
So H.696 initially was drafted to ensure that all Vermonters maintain “minimum essential coverage” starting Jan. 1, 2019.
The House, which approved the bill last month, sidestepped questions about how to enforce that mandate. That was left to the working group, which would report back to the Legislature by Nov. 1 so that lawmakers could decide on a penalty during the 2019 session.
But the Senate Finance Committee, which took charge of the bill several weeks ago, didn’t like the idea of a health insurance mandate taking effect Jan. 1 with no penalty to back it up. That might establish a “very poor precedent,” Sirotkin said.
The Senate’s version strips the House’s Jan. 1 start date for a mandate. Sirotkin said it’s best to let the working group do its study, “and then appropriately combine both the penalty and the mandate together in a piece of legislation next year.”
Though a majority of the Senate supported the amendment, some still questioned the bill.
Sen. Randy Brock, R-Franklin, said he believes that the remaining working group language still “makes the underlying assumption that there will, in fact, be a mandate.”
“That is something that I certainly question — whether the appropriateness of a statewide mandate makes sense in the first place,” Brock said.
On the other side of the ideological spectrum, Sen. Chris Pearson, P/D-Chittenden, wondered whether the bill ought to state more clearly that a state mandate eventually will happen once its mechanisms are figured out.
After hearing from both senators, Sirotkin remarked that the Finance Committee may have “hit a sweet spot” with the bill.
Due to the Senate’s amendments, H.696 now will go back to the House.
Gov. Phil Scott’s administration, after initially expressing concerns, has thrown its support behind the establishment of a state individual mandate.
