To the Editor,
In the latest outrageous Vermont health care news, we learn that Vermont hospitals are marking up outpatient drugs to an average of more than 500% of the manufacturer’s price (and in one case nearly 70 times the manufacturer’s price) — the highest markup in the nation.
This is one of several reasons for escalating health insurance costs in Vermont. So, it is good news that lawmakers are taking emergency steps and adding an amendment to a drug price bill that would cap outpatient drug prices.
But is it effective to keep responding on a one-on-one basis to each health care crisis? Ironically, the lobbyist for the hospitals has admitted that price gouging is wrong. But she argues we have a “very flawed way of paying for health care.”
That’s correct. Most countries pay for hospital care as a universal public good. They pool publicly raised funds and finance their hospitals with global operating budgets that take account of local needs and levels of care required in each facility. Such systems have better control over hospital costs and more effective public oversight than we do.
Yet this legislative session, a bill (H.267) that would have created a publicly financed hospital system languished in House Health. No testimony was taken. The same is true of bills that would have created universal primary care (H.433 and H.185). Can our relevant House committees take testimony on these bills next session?
We can keep trying to put out forest fires, or we can start the work of systemic reform. Let’s prevent the fires from ever starting.
Sincerely,
Ellen Oxfeld (member of the board of Vermont Health Care for All)
Middlebury
