Wednesday, October 14, 2015
“We aren’t expecting to use those contingency plans,” Lawrence Miller, chief of health reform for the administration, reported Wednesday to the House Health Care Committee.
Next week, state officials expect to transfer files to the health insurance companies that would roll over all current customers into the same insurance coverage that they have today — but with 2016 premiums and subsidies. If those transfers go well, customers will need to do nothing but pay the bill to continue their coverage — unless they want to change plans or alter who is included under the policy.
Miller predicted fast turnaround for changes, noting that the automated process that has been rolled out over the summer means half of all requests are handled while customers are on the phone.
Tags: Lawrence Miller , Vermont Health Connect , Image , Web Only
Thursday, October 1, 2015
Gov. Peter Shumlin celebrated Vermont Health Connect’s second birthday Thursday by announcing a key fix to a problem that has plagued the insurance exchange since its launch.
Speaking at a Statehouse press conference, the governor said the state was prepared to install a software upgrade that should smooth the system’s annual open-enrollment period, which begins next month. He said the online portal would go offline Thursday night so that the software could be installed and would be back in business Monday.
Shumlin, who has long been criticized for over-promising and under-delivering on Vermont Health Connect, took great pains to speak cautiously about the improvements.
“I want to make clear that today is not a ‘mission accomplished,’” he said, standing beside top health care advisers, customer service representatives and exchange users. “It’s an update … that we’re very optimistic that on November 1 this exchange is going to work as we all wished it would have [from the start].”
Tags: Vermont Health Connect , Peter Shumlin , Image , Web Only
Monday, September 28, 2015
Was someone asking after the health of his sex organ? Sort of. The man, presumably circumcised, was responding in loud disagreement to a clutch of roadside activists protesting circumcision. They dressed to stop traffic in all-white clothing with blood-red patches over their crotches and signs showing babies and bearing slogans such as: "How Dare You Cut His Penis!"
Circumcision is performed on males, typically when they are newborns, and entails cutting the foreskin from the penis.
Concern about the practice and shifting recommendations from public health experts contributed to a drop in rates of circumcision in the U.S. between 1979 and 2010. It fell from 65 to 58 percent of male newborns over that time, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Now the rate appears to be climbing back, possibly in response to research showing that circumcision can help reduce the spread of HIV and other STDs. Three years ago the American Academy of Pediatrics revised its position on circumcision to offer stronger support. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also chimed in, saying the benefits outweigh the risks.
The anti-circ squad on the streets Monday remains dead-set against the practice. "It's really barbaric and harmful and babies scream like hell," said Franny Max of Montreal, as she stood in a white outfit waving a sign at traffic.
Tags: circumcision , south , burlington , american academy of pediatrics , centers for disease control , Image , Web Only
Friday, September 18, 2015
So it's a surprise that, buried in a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office report to Congress on state health insurance exchanges, a chart says Vermont had more fully functioning technology than other states operating their own marketplaces.
"What this means is that we have made some major improvements over time," said Steve Costantino, commissioner of the Department of Vermont Health Access, which oversees the exchange.
The focus of the 109-page GAO report was the effectiveness of federal oversight on the technology projects associated with the health insurance exchanges.
Friday, August 14, 2015
“How many of the 65,000 people covered by Blue Cross in Vermont will get a 6 percent raise next year?” asked Megan Sheehan, co-director of the Vermont Workers’ Center, which coordinates the Campaign for Health Care as a Human Right. “The Green Mountain Care Board is condemning thousands of Vermont residents to increased financial hardship."
The testimony of seven people affiliated with the Health Care as a Human Right at the Blue Cross rate hearing had put human faces on the potential impact of the increase. The board also received written comments from 450 people, many using a template provided by the Vermont Public Interest Research Group. Still, the board noted that 40 percent had added personal comments about the hardship an increase would pose.
One board member — Dr. Allan Ramsay — also disagreed with the board's majority and argued in his dissent that the Blue Cross rate increase could have been has low as 4.7 percent. He noted Blue Cross wanted a 9.8 percent increase in 2015 and was granted 7.7 percent.
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
So he called a news briefing Tuesday because he finally had good news. The backlog of cases of Vermonters trying to make changes to their insurance information had been whittled from 10,200 at the end of May to less than 4,500, he said.
And he predicted that the next improvement — automated policy renewal — will be delivered in time for customers to use it to sign up for 2016 insurance coverage beginning November 1.
"I am committed to making Vermont Health Connect work," Shumlin said. Still, his administration has a contingency plan in case the new enrollment technology isn't ready by October 1, the state's deadline. In a backup plan delivered to legislators earlier this month, the administration said it would hire 200 temporary workers at a cost of $3.5 million to manually process renewals.
Tags: Vermont Health Connect , Peter Shumlin , Lawrence Miller , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Jaime Contois of Putney had a similar story. Also a new mom, she said she and her wife already pay $18,000 a year for health insurance — 22 percent of their combined incomes. "We are looking at not being able to afford insurance as we start a family," Contois told the board. "I ask you to deny the rate increase. It is unethical."
Blue Cross had filed to raise its premiums by an average of 8.4 percent next year, then amended the request to 8.6 percent. By this week's hearing, however, it had agreed with an independent actuarial consultant that it could live with a 7.2 average increase. Blue Cross covers 70,000 people with plans sold through Vermont Health Connect, also called the health exchange.
The board must settle on 2016 rates by August 13. The policies take effect on January 1.
For six hours spread over two days, the Green Mountain Care Board listened to technical testimony on requests from Blue Cross and MVP Healthcare to increase premiums for the policies they will sell next year through Vermont Health Connect. It was in the final half hour of the second day that seven individuals put human faces on the impact of those proposed increases — poignant presentations that likely made the board's decision more difficult.
Tags: Blue Cross Blue Shield , MVP Healthcare , Green Mountain Care Board , Image , Web Only
Thursday, July 23, 2015
The increase is within the limit set by the Green Mountain Care Board. The change in patient-revenue figures that hospitals anticipate range from minus 2.7 percent for Gifford Medical Center in Randolph to a 5.9 percent increase from Northwestern Medical Center in St. Albans.
University of Vermont Medical Center proposes a $39 million increase in patient revenues, a growth that precisely hits the 3.6 percent limit.
The Green Mountain Care Board, which approves budgets, got its first look at hospital budget data Thursday.
"This is the beginning of a many-step process," chair Al Gobeille told the small crowd attending the briefing. Looking at the individual growth rates, he said, "I wouldn't judge anyone over as bad or under as good."
Tags: Green Mountain Care Board , Affordable Care Act , Al Gobeille , Image , Web Only
Thursday, July 2, 2015
"The vote was close," said Jason Serota-Winston, a nurse and member of the negotiating team for the Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Care Professionals. The union keeps contract vote figures confidential, he said.
Serota-Winston attributed the narrow margin to members' frustration that several key issues remain unaddressed in the agreement, including safe staffing and safe lifting. Also not in the contract: pay equity for nurses, whether they work in outpatient clinics or the hospital.
The new contract raises all nurses' base pay by 1 percent in the first year and by a half percent in each of the next two years. Nurses haven't had base pay increases in either of the last two years, but had received a 1 percent increase in the first year of the most recent contract.
Tags: Laurie Aunchman , nurses , University of Vermont Medical Center , UVM Medical Center , Image , Web Only
Vermont’s state university will go tobacco-free August 1, UVM President Thomas Sullivan announced this week in a campus memo.
The decision shouldn’t come as a surprise. As Seven Days reported, a campus committee studied it for two years and students debated it. Some urged the administration to bring on the ban; others saw it as meddling by a nanny campus government.
UVM already prohibits smoking inside buildings and right outside them. The new policy goes further: Tobacco and smoking utensils with anything in them, including pot, will be banned from campus paths, greens, parking lots and garages — in other words, all UVM property.
That’s good news to students who complained of being forced to walk through clouds of stinky smoke on campus walkways, but an unwelcome development for smokers who will be forced to puff on sidewalks and greenbelts at the edge of campus.
Tags: cannabis related , smoking , students , tobacco , University , Vermont , Image , Web Only