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Plan to avoid crash to be announced September 18
By Mike Bielawski
Vermont’s hospitals want “immediate, decisive action” as they face negative operating budgets and increasingly shaky health care insurance. The call for help comes as Vermont health care insurance premium rates are expected to climb 20%.
Their specific desired course of action will be outlined 10 AM Wednesday Sept. 18, at an online-accessible public meeting will be held by the Green Mountain Care Board titled “Act 167 Community Engagement to Support Hospital Transformation: Final Report.” Vermont hospitals’ leadership is expected to explain how they hope to stay economically viable while enduring rising operational costs in a challenging economy. Also, despite steep rate increases, Vermont’s non-profit insurers have lost significant reserves and face solvency challenges, consultant Dr. Bruce Hamory said.
The Board’s press release from late July indicated they are facing a dire economic situation. The report by a GMCB consultant stated, “Unless immediate decisive action is taken to transform Vermont’s health care system, it will be financially unsustainable by 2030.”
A GMCB consultant predicts that by 2030 nearly all Vermont hospitals will have negative operating margins.
It further states, “The problems facing Vermont hospitals include a lack of access and transportation to medical care, long waits in Emergency Departments, high insurance costs, a lack of communication with patients about possible help from financial services, and long waits for medical procedures.”
In early August the Board had another report indicating that the hospitals’ costs are growing at a faster rate than their income. The Board had hired Dr. Bruce Hamory to audit Vermont’s hospital’s economic situation.
VDC reported, “Hamory’s team projected that based on 3.5% hospital revenue growth and 5% cost growth, in five years, nearly all Vermont hospitals will have negative operating margins. The benchmark Silver Plan Blue Cross-Blue Shield premium in Vermont has risen 108% since 2018 and is the highest in the nation.”
The GMCB’s Chair Owen Foster is quoted saying, “We don’t want to see that chaos happen in any community in Vermont. To prevent this, we’ll need to be proactive and bold. Vermont has a tremendous opportunity that allows us to design a durable system that is responsive to our changing demographics.”
Vermonters already struggling
Vermonters are not feeling good about the overall cost of living in the Green Mountain State. One poll from late August by the University of New Hampshire discovered that few Vermonters think they are doing better economically than last year and about 4-in-10 said just meeting basic needs is a challenge.
Affordability has become a challenge on other fronts besides health care, including taxation, housing, energy, and replacing/repairing aging schools.
- The state’s residents also just got another double-digit property tax increase. Originally the increase was going to be over 20% but two new taxes were created to produce revenue to buy the rate down just for this year. The Legislature added a 6% sales tax on Software as a Service and a 3% surcharge on short-term rentals, among other new fees such as at the DMV.
- The cost of a gallon of fuel oil will rise $2-4/gallon if the Clean Heat Standard is implemented, based on estimates in a state-mandated report released last week. According to the higher estimate, a 250 gallon fuel tank will cost an additional $1,000 to fill.
- Also, Vermont’s aging schools will need $6.3 billion to repair or replace, another state study concluded.
- Also, Vermont’s home prices have risen more steeply than any other state.
The author is a writer for the Vermont Daily Chronicle
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Categories: Health Care
Sadly, this is no surprise for some of us that have been following the situation for some time. There have been several factors involved over a period of time, incl. the current economy. Due to the out-of-control increase in the cost of living in Vt. it has become almost impossible for hospital workers to live here. Therefore, it has become increasingly necessary for hospitals, and some clinics, to hire traveling personnel, which is very expensive. For those that are not aware of the high cost for “travelers”, much of it goes to the company that employs them for administrative costs. BTW-there is now the issue of where the “travelers” will live while they work in Vt.
I have a lot more to add, but will leave it with this for now. Take a look at hospital administrative overhead.
Great, we can be 100% renewable in energy use by 2030, but have no health coverage. No problem. It’s the right thing to do. Still have health care for BIPOC persons though, so the rest of us can have greater peace of mind…
Any questions as to how they will usher us into Socialism via Universal Healthcare by 2030? Answer: Through health care costs.
How will the legislature handle this? Tax us more of course. How SHOULD they handle it? Address costs. Sure, it’s nice to make sure everyone is insured BUT until medical costs are addressed, this will never be fixed.
How does the state get more power and money?
Take a problem.
Make it bigger.
Say you have to have more control to fix the problem.
Tell the people it will save them money.
Implement the plan.
Suddenly find the new plan is more expensive than the old plan.
How many times do we have to do this to know it’s not working?
We’ve been through this what 4x in education?
3X in health care
Big Pharma and the Insurance companies want to “manage” chronic disease.
They don’t want to cure it, to have you healthy, cause they can’t make money of it.
But if they can get you hooked on diabetes in your youth, they will have a multimillion-dollar patient for life. It’s like our affordable housing grift. They don’t want to change anything because everybody is making so much stinking money.
Here is an overview of why Vermont has a failed medical system. Same as the United States, it’s all an inside game. This is a wonderful interview.
https://tuckercarlson.com/tucker-show-casey-calley-means?watchedTime=1058.249072
I’m watching this video for the second time.
If you do anything, have a loved one watch this video. If you look around ANY body of people you can’t help but notice, pretty much everybody is suffering and ill. You can see it physically manifest in our body.
Suffering from type 2 diabetes, I can vogue that if you change your eating habits, your blood sugar will plummet to normal levels. You also don’t have to suffer in what you eat. Instead of SAD (standard American diet) we could have RAD (real American diet), eat like an Amish farmer. Remember the picture of the Mennonites women helping in Vermont, radiant with joy, strong, physically fit. They aren’t eating Cheetos.
One example. My favorite cracker, Ritz.
Ritz crackers are banned in Europe, it’s a trifecta of bad choices
1) GMO Wheat – ultra refined on top of that.
2) Seed Oils
3) High Levels of Glyphosate (Round up)
We could be healthier, more money in our pockets and eating good food, we’d solve this within 2 years.
In Vermont this should be like swimming downstream with Farm to table. This is an easy goal for the VTGOP to represent the people, to do the right thing.
We should become an organic state, all incentives toward that.
A provider of heritage seed and animal breeds.
An incentive to have whole health doctors, primary care as the highest paid.
We could have a voluntary section in stores for healthy food (it would only take up 5-10% of the stores space)
Suddenly we’d be the first in the nation to be healthy.
We’d be the first to solve our health care problems.
We’d drop our medical expenses by 60-70%.
We’d be healthy.
We’d be skinny.
We’d have more energy.
We can do much better in Vermont, much, much better.
I have a work around for the $4.00 tax on fuels. I’m either going to buy a 100 gallon tank with a pump to put in my truck and go to a truck stop and buy off road fuel or hire someone with a tank to fill my fuel tank, thus avoid paying the $4.00 tax!
We the people were not asked or voted for this mandate. So this will be my protest to the people in Montpelier!
Also, I replaced my furnace two years ago, and I have no plans on replacing it with something else.
Green Mountain Care Board or Public Service Board – has either, or the countless numerous other boards, committees or task forces done anything that hasn’t cost taxpayers more in taxes, fees, goods or services? While they drive up costs for everyone, collect their stipends, reimbursed expenses, and whatever other favors passed under the tables, the collective scratch their collective heads wondering why our quality of living continues to decline in this corrupt cesspool of Vermont. The very top tier of welfare recipients are not going to stop their gravy train until the gravy runs dry…which won’t be long under the current regime’s projectory and faltering ponzi scheme. It’s all collapsing into it’s own cellar hole – the problem is the very same people (all connected one way or another) who created this mess are expected to fix it? Make it make sense.
The GMCB in its history has only protected the medical establishment and the health insurance industry and nothing for the general public. They have done nothing to control costs. Many people are finding their expensive health insurance to be a worthless product. They would be better off putting money aside to pay for their own health care and stop paying for outrageous increases in health insurance costs and high deductibles. Everybody wants more money but the people dont have more money. So the only answer to the problem is everybody in the health care business will have to be willing to accept less pay. Health care costs have risen faster than inflation for decades. Health care costs are way out of line with the rest of the economy. Did you go into health care to make money or to help people? I’ll stop now to let the screaming die down.
Keep voting Democrat and health care will become even more unsustainable