$200 million.
That’s the figure Vermont’s health care system needs to save — very quickly — in order to hold Vermont health insurance premium increases to around 5% next year for the state’s largest insurer, according to the Green Mountain Care Board.
If those savings don’t materialize in the next few months, insurance premiums for residents and small businesses from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont could increase by around 15% to 20% in 2026, if not more, board member Jessica Holmes told lawmakers Wednesday morning.
That suggests, in order to keep care at least remotely affordable for Vermonters, the state’s hospitals, primary, specialty and long-term care providers need to transform — and quickly.
“This is really tough to hear, and I recognize that, but I think Vermonters cannot afford the health care system that we currently have,” Holmes said.
On Wednesday, health care leaders came to a joint meeting of the Senate and House health care committees with a message: we are working on it. CEOs of three rural hospitals — Gifford Health Care, Springfield Hospital and North Country Hospital — laid out their efforts to cut costs, which include eliminating certain services, trimming staff and pooling resources with neighboring providers.
And Brendan Krause, Vermont’s Director of Health Care Reform at the Agency of Human Services, showed lawmakers the framework of a roughly eight-month plan in which the agency would meet with providers around the state and offer “technical assistance” to help with “administrative cost reduction and streamlining of medical services, etc.,” Krause said.
But to multiple lawmakers in the room, those efforts appeared neither effective nor urgent enough to save that $200 million — and stave off ruinous premium hikes.
Without greater collaboration and coordination across the health care ecosystem, Rep. Topper McFaun, R-Barre Town, said, “all the discussion that you’re having — let’s be honest, it’s not working.”
Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden Southeast, the chair of Senate Health and Welfare, concurred.
“We can’t wait for change to happen,” she said. “We need to direct the change.”
—Peter D’Auria
In the know
Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark is joining the top prosecutors of 11 other states in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s tariff policies, the Attorney General’s office announced Wednesday.
The attorneys general, who filed the lawsuit Wednesday in the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York City, argue that Trump’s four executive orders imposing tariffs on imports from other countries violate Article I of the U.S. Constitution, which assigns Congress, not the president, the “Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises.”
“President Trump’s illegal tariffs will harm Vermont’s businesses and consumers,” Clark said in a Wednesday press release announcing the suit. “I’m suing the Trump Administration for the tenth time over these illegal tariffs to protect working Vermonters, small businesses, and our economy.”
The lawsuit requests a preliminary and permanent injunction blocking U.S. Customs and Border Patrol from enforcing the tariffs.
Read more about the new lawsuit here.
— Habib Sabet
Service journalism
Last week, this newsletter broke the huge story that Google was incorrectly displaying the words “Comité Olímpico de Portugal” atop many Vermont state documents in its search results.
Just after that edition of Final Reading was published, Google fixed the problem, according to the Agency of Digital Services. The words no longer appear in Google search results, per the agency and a few of VTDigger’s test searches.
Just one more example of VTDigger’s hard-hitting journalism making an impact!
— Peter D’Auria
Clarification: This newsletter has been updated to reflect a clarification the Green Mountain Care Board issued Thursday that the $200 million in health care savings needed to keep health insurance premiums around 5% applies only to plans from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont, not all insurers.
