Issue Position: Health Care

Vermont Health Connect (the exchange, 2014)

Insurance costs for approximately 110,000 Vermonters subject to the Exchange starting in January 2014 will increase if your previous coverage was through your employer's association, Catamount or VHAP. This has been known since early 2012 and will have a direct impact on municipalities that employ fewer than 50 people, thus increasing municipal taxes. The governor has proposed additional funding to soften the blow of the increases, but the federal government disallowed the funding formula and now that amount is reduced by $4.0 million from an original budget of $9.5 million.

Employers will be encouraged to drop their employee health care plans due to cost increases and low penalties for doing so, thus encouraging participation in the exchange, which is the goal of the state. I am concerned that many Vermonters will choose to go without coverage when this happens. Enrollment in the exchange will begin in October 2013 for coverage starting in January 2014.

Green Mountain Care 2017

Green Mountain Care--a single payer system mandatory for most Vermonters will begin in 2017. It will be funded by $1.6 billion in new taxes above what we pay today, or three times the current Vermont income tax collection of about $600 million.

Act 48 required the administration to produce a financing plan for Green Mountain Care, the single payer system by January 2013. The UMass report suggests that Green Mountain Care will require $1.6 billion dollars in new taxes, along with anticipated increases in federal Medicaid funding to finance the new plan. The plan did not provide a recommendation as requested by the legislature and there are many questions still unanswered in this proposal, such as health care out of state (portability) and how much out of pocket costs will increase under the system. The state paid $300,000 for the study which represents the 4th study regarding single payer health care the state has commissioned in recent years.

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