Jon Margolis is VTDigger’s political columnist.
When the going gets tough, they say, the tough get going. The not-so-tough hire a public relations consultant.
Or complain that they’re being mistreated by the news biz, suggesting that they need a public relations consultant.
Nobody needs a public relations consultant.
Just during this month, Vermont has seen examples of both phenomena. The University of Vermont’s new president, Suresh Garimella, “created a new communications position … to improve UVM’s profile,” according to the student newspaper, the Vermont Cynic.
Her name is Nicci Brown. Her title is chief communications officer. She comes to UVM from Syracuse University where she was vice president of marketing and communications. Her salary is $200,000 a year. For the same price, UVM could hire two tenured faculty members, of whom there are fewer than there were 10 years ago.
In light of which, is it possible that – just from a public relations perspective – hiring yet another high-priced executive does more harm than good?
Just asking.
A few days earlier the leaders of OneCare Vermont started whining about the bum rap they think they and their enterprise are getting from reporters and editors. The main person to whom they whined was their regulator. He agreed with them, and according to my colleague Katie Jickling suggested “that the company needs to launch a media relations campaign.”
Nobody needs to launch a media relations campaign.
A few qualifications. No one is being attacked here. Ridiculed, yes, but not attacked. Let’s stipulate that Nicci Brown is a good person who will do a good job. UVM President Garimella is responding to a real problem: an impending shortage of potential students. Besides, he just did something smart. He decided there would be no tuition increase next year, an announcement that, among other things, is good public relations.
As to the OneCare Vermont bigwigs, they have a tough job. What they’re trying to do is nothing less than transform Vermont’s health care system and the way it is financed. It’s an experiment. Vermont is one of only 18 states heading toward an “all-payer” system: “a price setting mechanism in which all third parties pay the same price for services at a given hospital.”
Proving how mind-bogglingly complex is OneCare’s task, the words quoted above (from Wikipedia) are totally meaningless out of context, and providing the context would take too long and possibly end up being just as meaningless.
The third party being ridiculed but not attacked, top regulator Kevin Mullin, is also trying to do a hard job. As will be explained presently, he needs some public relations advice. But that does not make him either a fool or a knave. Before becoming chair of the Green Mountain Care Board, Mullin was a responsible and effective legislator for almost 20 years.
And of course these are two separate and very different matters, connected only by the inclination of their leaders to suppose that their problems stem from being misunderstood (and, in UVM’s case, insufficiently publicized), and that if only they communicated better, everyone would see what a great job they’re doing.
But the best way to make sure everybody knows what a great job you’re doing is to do a great job. Then the “profiles” would be just fine. No high-priced flacks would be needed.
Like all colleges around here, UVM faces the challenge that people in the Northeast have been having fewer children for the last few decades, reducing the number of people who turn 18 each year. But according to longtime UVM spokesperson Enrique Corredera, “the Class of 2023 is one of our largest … with the largest Honors College cohort and the highest SAT scores in our history.”
Sounds like the profile is pretty good.
OneCare Vermont also has its challenges. Its most recent gripe-fest was apparently spawned by some rather mild criticism in a report by the state auditor’s office, which found that OneCare “did not reliably monitor or accurately report” all its activities.
In the great Vermont tradition of complaining about every mildly critical report from the auditor’s office, OneCare complained, declining to discuss the details of its complaint with a reporter.
Declining to talk to a reporter and then complaining about press coverage is not good public relations.
But it’s not hard to see why OneCare Vermont is uneasy about its public image. Not because it is doing anything wrong. It may be doing everything right. But it is a weird duck. It is a for-profit company owned by nonprofit companies, mostly by the University of Vermont and Dartmouth-Hitchcock medical centers.
If nothing else, that configuration raises the question of whether, as OneCare Vermont grows larger and more powerful, those nonprofits are going to be transformed into de facto for-profits.
Especially because at least half the time they already behave as though that’s what they are.
OneCare Vermont and its all-payer system may be the right path. The health care world is all but unanimous that all-payer – paying providers per patient instead of per treatment (“capitation” is the jargon) – is the way to improve health outcomes while holding down costs.
Getting to capitation via OneCare Vermont, though, contains its own risks, wherein we come to Kevin Mullin’s public relations problem. If all goes according to plan, OneCare Vermont will end up as a multi-billion-dollar colossus dominating health care in Vermont. Not exactly a monopoly. But close.
History shows that dominant, for-profit, colossi serve the public interest rarely, and even then only if they are well-regulated. The regulator here is the Green Mountain Care Board, chaired by Mullin.
Unfortunately, by statute, the GMCB is both a regulator and a promoter. Not unique (think: Nuclear Regulatory Commission); just a mistake.
But even a regulator who is also a promoter should appear to be neutral – perhaps even a touch skeptical – about the entity being regulated (the regulatee?). So it was foolish for Mullin to tell OneCare Vermont officials, “You can look yourself in the mirror and know you’re doing good things on behalf of the state of Vermont.”
Perhaps they are, but a regulator should not seem that fond of the regulated.
On an annual basis, this public relations advice could cost something like 200 grand. Here it’s free.
