Friday, March 13, 2015
Under a bill that won 9-0 approval late Friday, these folks would be allowed to buy their insurance directly from one of the companies selling exchange-compliant policies beginning next fall, when the enrollment period for 2016 opens. Vermont has two insurers in its health coverage market.
"I want to put this in play," Committee chair Bill Lippert (D-Hinesburg) said. He had the panel vote to meet the legislature's self-imposed crossover deadline. By Friday, bills needed to have emerged from committees to get consideration this session.
The administration of Gov. Peter Shumlin and insurance companies voiced support for the policy change.
"We are fine with the proposal," Susan Gretkowski, government affairs strategist for MVP Healthcare, told lawmakers Friday afternoon before their vote.
Tags: Vermont Health Connect , Bill Lippert , House Health Care Committee , Image , Web Only
Thursday, March 12, 2015
But just how much they're spending to make their case — and who's paying for it — won't be known until April 25, the next lobbying disclosure deadline. By then, the legislature will be days away from adjournment and the question may well have been settled.
The Senate Committee on Government Operations is seeking to change that process. It voted unanimously Thursday morning for legislation that would enhance lobbying disclosure rules. Instead of reporting how much they've made and spent just three times a year, lobbyists would be required to do so five times a year — including once a month during the legislative session.
Perhaps more significantly, those spending more than $1,000 on advertising campaigns meant to influence legislative action would have to disclose such expenditures within 48 hours.
Tags: Vermont lobbyist disclosure , Image , Web Only
Johnson's boss, Gov. Peter Shumlin, has been counting on $10.8 million in unspecified labor savings to help bridge the state's $113 million budget gap. The administration has implored the Vermont State Employees Association to reopen a recently negotiated contract in order to find half of those savings, but so far the union has declined to do so.
"It seems unlikely that the State's labor contract will be reopened as part of the solution to balancing the budget," Johnson wrote Shumlin's secretaries and commissioners. "This situation leaves me with no alternative but to begin planning for a significant reduction in force across all sectors of Vermont state government to be effective July 2015, the start of the new fiscal year."
Johnson's letter appears designed to ratchet up pressure on the union by calling for specific job cuts to be identified. But VSEA executive director Steve Howard said Thursday his members do not intend to budge.
"We believe these [reductions in force] are unnecessary, that there are better ways to balance the budget that make more sense to the state, including asking the wealthiest Vermonters who've had all the economic gains in the last 10 years to pay a little more to support state services that their communities depend on," Howard said.
Tags: Vermont State Employees Association , Justin Johnson , Steve Howard , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
“This is about the state saying, 'We think it’s OK for you to commit suicide,'" said Sen. Peg Flory (R-Rutland), who argued on the Senate floor for repealing the law. "I think it's a bad policy."
Sen. Claire Ayer (D-Addison) defended the law as something other than suicide. “I think that suicide and choosing to control the time and the manner of death when you’re already dying are completely different things," she said.
In 2013, the law was approved by a narrow margin after a lengthy and contentious debate. Opponents, who worry some people could be pressured into using the law to avoid becoming a burden, hope to repeal it this year. Their best chance appeared to be in the Senate, where the 2013 vote was closest.
“We thought we had a good shot,” said Guy Page, an opponent who represents the Vermont Alliance for Ethical Health Care. He said he’ll continue to seek repeal, or at least to delay a vote until next year in the House.
Tags: Death with Dignity , physician-assisted suicide , Vermont Senate , end-of-life , palliative care , Maggie Lake , Jason Saltman , Image , Web Only
When they left for Town Meeting Day recess nearly two weeks ago, members of the House Health Care Committee were debating whether to fund their policy priorities by taxing business payrolls or sugar-sweetened beverages.
On Wednesday, they coalesced around a new plan to do both — and to eliminate an existing tax on businesses that don’t provide health insurance to employees.
The hybrid revenue package, which won support from eight out of 10 members present for a straw vote, came together quickly Wednesday — and it could fall apart just as quickly. A formal vote is expected Thursday morning once the latest version of the bill is fully drafted.
"To be honest, until lunchtime I didn't have a proposal to put on the table," Chairman Bill Lippert (D-Hinesburg) said as he unveiled the package later that afternoon in a jam-packed committee room.
Tags: Vermont health care reform , sugar-sweetened beverage , payroll tax , Bill Lippert , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
By a 122 to 24 vote, the House sent the bill to the Senate, but not without questions from those who say the bill would end up costing electric customers more, not less.
"They're saying it's going to bring lower rates and we just don't believe that," said House Minority Leader Don Turner (R-Milton), who tried stripping the bill of provisions that would require utilities to offer incentives for customers to reduce their use of fossil fuels. His amendment was defeated 99 to 42 on the House floor.
Tags: Renewable energy , Vermont Legislature , Image , Web Only
According to the Democratic Governors Association's website, Shumlin is confirmed for a two-day conference this weekend in Fajardo, a picturesque resort town on the eastern end of the island.
Shumlin's Puerto Rican excursion comes a mere nine days after he returned from a weeklong Town Meeting Day vacation in Dominica, the Caribbean island nation on which he owns property. It also comes a day after crossover, the deadline by which most legislation — with the exception of major money bills — must pass one legislative body or the other.
"As of now he is scheduled to go," Shumlin spokesman Scott Coriell says. "But should the legislature remain in session over the weekend he will cancel those plans."
Tags: Peter Shumlin , Puerto Rico , Democratic Governors Association , Image , Web Only
Thursday, February 26, 2015
As they outlined the potential savings in a Statehouse hearing room, lawmakers described them as everything from "tough" to "painful" to "incredibly difficult."
It's unclear which of the cuts will actually see the light of day. House Appropriations Committee chair Mitzi Johnson (D-South Hero) emphasized that the two-page document she presented was merely a menu from which legislators could choose as they seek to close a $113 million gap in next year's budget.
"This is an all-in list," she said. "It doesn't mean that we're doing every single thing on this list. It's that we feel like it's the right thing to do to be as transparent as we can be with the magnitude of this problem, what it's going to take to solve it and the kinds of things that we're looking at."
Tags: Vermont state budget , Mitzi Johnson , Justin Johnson , Vermont State Employees Association , Steve Howard , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
"I've gotten a couple of emails," Sen. Michael Sirotkin (D-Chittenden) said wryly, prompting laughs from his colleagues.
Supporters of the bill, which would dramatically reshape the way the state protects children from abuse, complained that many of those flooding lawmakers with phone calls and emails have their facts wrong.
"Somehow in this building, frequently, things are misconstrued, so that's part of what you might be hearing," said Sen. Dick Sears (D-Bennington), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee and helped draft the bill.
Sears noted that his committee had scaled back the scope of the bill in the weeks since it was first introduced, and he wondered whether irate voters were responding to the current version or previous iterations. The chair sought to remind his fellow Democrats why they were considering the legislation in the first place: the deaths last February and April of two young children whose families were under state supervision.
"This is about a child-protection system that has significant problems," Sears said.
Tags: Vermont child protection legislation , failure to protect , Dick Sears , Becca Balint , Image , Web Only
Monday, February 23, 2015
In a five-page report released Monday, Hoffer stopped short of accusing the economist, Jonathan Gruber, of fraud, citing a lack of documentation pertaining to his alleged "inconsistencies and questionable billing practices." But the state auditor was unsparing in his criticism of the administration's oversight of the contract, which called for an economic analysis of Shumlin's since-abandoned single-payer health care proposal.
"[I]t's clear that the Agency of Administration failed to exercise due diligence and enforce important provisions of the contract," Hoffer wrote. "The Agency of Administration should be a model of best practices in contract administration. Hopefully, it will work to improve its oversight and control functions to ensure greater accountability."
Hoffer referred the matter to Attorney General Bill Sorrell, who said Monday afternoon that his office will look into it.
"Obviously the auditor raises serious questions and we're going to take it seriously," Sorrell said. "We'll just take the case where the facts lead us."
Tags: Doug Hoffer , Jonathan Gruber , Image , Web Only