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By Michael Bielawski
The Green Mountain Care Board has stated that they are not forcing any hospitals to close, despite first issuing a report on hospital finances that includes recommendations that some do close.
The Green Mountain Care Board Chair Owen Foster says, “The Oliver Wyman report does not mandate any changes at any Vermont hospital. Rather, it provides a projection of Vermont’s financial headwinds and provides options for local communities and hospital leaders to consider.”
The full press release can be read here.
The Wyman report was the result of a legislative mandate. Act 167 passed in 2022 requires that the GMCB in collaboration with the Agency of Human Services develop a new approach to healthcare that increases access and affordability.
Foster continued about the shortcomings the report found.
“Vermont has gaps in care to essential services, including long-term care and home health and hospice, mental health care, and primary care, that the Oliver Wyman report identifies and provides options for addressing,” he said. It notes that nine of the state’s 14 hospitals are operating at a deficit. Multiple hospitals were recommended for closing or drastically relocating core services, in one case prompting a town mayor to respond.
“I can’t think of anything that would more discourage the investors and development we are trying to attract to the region than to have the State communicate that we so little value the communities in this remote and isolated part of the State that we are as a State going to just gut our health care infrastructure here,” Newport’s Mayor Linda Sullivan said in September.
The Wyman report offers three strategies to compensate for a hospital’s closure. They are to refer inpatients to “regional specialty centers”, to address patients’ acute healthcare needs “within a reasonable distance” and to “address community members’ social needs previously treated in the hospital setting.”
Back in July, the GMCB issued a dire statement about the long-term viability of Vermont’s hospitals. “Unless immediate decisive action is taken to transform Vermont’s health care system, it will be financially unsustainable by 2030,” they said.
The Wyman Report’s executive summary notes Green Mountain State’s aging demographics. “Overall population is aging – individuals >65 years old are projected to exceed 30% of the total population by 2040 which will exacerbate current strains on the healthcare system due to increasingly complex care needs.” It says what this means for the workforce.
“Working age population declines (-13% by 2040) will intensify workforce shortages and limit contributions to commercial healthcare premiums, rendering cross-subsidization increasingly unsustainable as a financial strategy.”
In addition to high costs, the report suggests that overall access is not great.
“Primary and specialty care clinics have long wait times preventing patients from seeing providers for urgent/routine visits in a reasonable timeframe,” it states. In the section on inequities, they encourage hospitals to provide “culturally competent care” for those with unique “gender/sexual identity.”
On rising costs, the average premiums for the silver exchange plans are $985 for 2024. This constitutes a 108% increase in six years. It further notes a, “60-80% increase in individual, small group plan premiums in the past 6 years.”
Hospital closures made national headlines when GOP vice-president candidate JD Vance suggested that illegal immigration could be bankrupting healthcare providers.
“I guarantee it is an immigration issue because we’re bankrupting, bankrupting a lot of hospitals by forcing these hospitals to provide care for people who don’t have the legal right to be in our country.”
The author is a writer for the Vermont Daily Chronicle
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Categories: Health Care
2008 was the beginning of the “new approach to healthcare”. This new approach has accomplished marvelous things in the denigration of health care in Vermont and nationally. 108% increase in premium closely relates to the increases in property tax here in the peoples republic. If one cannot draw the correlation between government meddling and drastic cost increases for many of Vermont’s affordability woes- one might be a liberal.
Please outline the cost benefit to Vermont for “government paid” transgender surgery. How about other “mandatory coverages” demanded by legislative meddling? Vermont’s voters own this problem- by their choices for “leadership” and it looks like costs will only increase.
Hmmm, the progs think no strings attached welfare for life is good public policy.
Unfortunately, medicaid pays about 65% of the cost of medical care. There is no way these hospitals can exist under that model.
Once again, this quagmire is all policy driven
~”It will only cost about as much as your cell phone bill” – Obama
Since it went higher than a cell phone bill, does that mean we can now get rid of the whole thing? “Intent of congress” is clearly stated, and it’s veered away from the originally stated intent.
What can be said about how illegal immigration is affecting Vermont’s health care system? Who can dig in and report on this topic? While you are at it – how is it affecting other aspects of Vermont – education, housing, employment? Where are the 15k that have come in through the Swanton sector residing?
The taxes and increase in my private health care insurance the last two years have cost me the loss of six cords of firewood. Now, this does not include the money taken out of our social security for Medicare.