Retired state employees are still furious about the Scott administration’s plan to move them from a health benefit plan that supplements traditional Medicare and into a federally funded but privately operated alternative type of Medicare insurance from Cigna.
Bearing hand-lettered signs calling the proposal “Medicare Dis-Advantage,” roughly a dozen retirees and state employee union members gathered in the Statehouse’s Cedar Creek Room on Wednesday to rage at Gov. Phil Scott for continuing to push for the change. They included the man Vermont State Employees’ Association’s executive director Steve Howard called “one of our most famous retirees” — former Secretary of State Jim Condos.
“It is irresponsible. It is reckless and it is reprehensible to put retirees in fear that they will lose their health care and be forced into risky, controversial Medicare Advantage plans,” said Condos, just four weeks into his retirement.
The Scott administration says that the new Cigna group insurance will provide the same health and drug coverage as state retirees’ current package. Despite that, premiums for retirees will go down by 20%, and the state will save $9 million on the cost of insurance in the first year.
This outcome is too good to be believed, retired state employees said, particularly when the insurance company takes 15% for administrative overhead and profit. They contend that the math doesn’t work unless coverage is limited, either in terms of the network of providers available or the procedures and products covered or both.
Retirees are not buying it, said former VSEA president Dave Bellini, a 41-year veteran of the Vermont Department of Corrections.
“I can’t risk my life with Cigna health care or some professional prevaricator hired by the administration,” Bellini said. “This is a big no. And it’s personal.”
— Kristen Fountain
IN THE KNOW
“I’m probably not supposed to have alcohol in here,” Aminta Conant, special products manager of Caledonia Spirits, said as she plopped down a new canned gin-and-tonic for members of the House Commerce Committee to pass around. (I guess she missed the joint show-and-tell a few weeks back.)
Conant was there to testify in support of H.10, a bill that would overhaul the Vermont Employment Growth Incentives Program, the state’s corporate incentives program. Legislators are considering increasing transparency and stripping some extra benefits of the program, which has paid out $33 million since 2007.
Top of mind for lawmakers was the program’s “but for” provision, which mandates companies affirm they would not be able to achieve their goals “but for” the money Vermont is giving them. Recent visitors to the committee have expressed skepticism as to whether that was really the case. “We were required by the nature of the program to make people lie to us,” former program chair Chris Keyser told lawmakers on Tuesday.
— Erin Petenko
In March 2020, Vermont lawmakers spent long hours huddled with lobbyists from statewide health provider groups and state officials with one pressing goal: give the health care system flexibility to respond to the needs of the looming Covid-19 pandemic.
The time-limited resulting law, Act 91 and, later, parts of Act 140, have been extended twice, in 2021 and 2022. Now the same group is looking at those provisions to see which should continue for another year, which should expire and which should be made permanent.
One example is a change that expedited the process for allowing providers licensed in other states to begin working for Vermont health care facilities. That provision is still very much needed, due to staffing shortages in both hospitals and nursing homes, provider groups said.
“In some ways we are actually dealing with a more significant situation now,” Jill Olson, executive director of the VNAs of Vermont, an alliance of visiting nurses associations, told the House Committee on Health Care on Tuesday.
Approximately 700 health professionals from out-of-state were approved to practice in Vermont through the Office of Professional Regulation since the law went into effect, according to Deputy Secretary of State Lauren Hibbert.
— Kristen Fountain
The budget adjustment bill, as passed by the House, includes $50 million for the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, the nonprofit that has been charged with doling out much of the cash that the state has plowed into affordable housing since the Covid-19 pandemic began.
Gus Seelig, its executive director, came before the Senate Appropriations committee with an awkward message for a body used to pleading for money. For now, the board still has about $42 million left to grant to projects.
“If you’re asking me, would we allocate another $50 million on top of that by the end of this fiscal year? I’d have to say no, I don’t think so,” he said.
But building housing is an expensive and lengthy process, Seelig said. And setting aside the money now — instead of waiting until the regular budget process — will send a strong signal to developers that the state intends to help them maintain an aggressive pace of construction.
“We will see a lot more activity at our September board meeting if you do something sooner rather than later. Because people are making decisions today about, you know, what are their chances of success, and will they spend the money and take the risk,” he said.
— Lola Duffort
WHAT WE’RE READING
Vermont’s rates of homelessness are (almost) the worst in the country (VTDigger)
After appeal, Vermont parents able to use nonbinary gender marker on initial birth certificate (VTDigger)
In Slate Ridge case, judge tells Daniel Banyai to remove structures on property or face jail time (VTDigger)
BlueCross withdrawal from ACO has Vermont’s primary care practices worried (VTDigger)
Phil Scott decries ‘act of terrorism’ after police respond to hoax threats at 21 Vermont schools (VTDigger)
Vermont State University to close libraries, downgrade sports programs (VTDigger)
New hospital union seeks to reset ‘livable wage’ in Chittenden County (Seven Days)