MONTPELIER, Vt. (WCAX) – A proposal to expand publicly-funded health care coverage is building steam at the Statehouse. Democrats are pitching a plan to extend Medicaid to thousands of low-income Vermonters.
Vermont Representative Lori Houghton, D-Essex Junction, describes Vermont’s health care system as mixed. She says Vermonters are healthier than people in many other states but that the cost of health care continues to skyrocket. “We still have an accessibility and affordability issue for Vermonters and we need to fix that,” Houghton said.
Thirty percent of people under 65 were underinsured in 2014, according to Vermont’s Household Health Insurance Survey. That number rose to 37% in 2018 and 40% by 2021. “In order to be able to make it affordable, we need to focus on the health care that works, and that’s Medicaid,” Houghton said.
A new bill sponsored by 80 House Democrats would expand numerous state-funded Medicaid services. It would do that by raising the income eligibility cut-off so more people qualify; boosting access for seniors whose Medicare coverage falls short; and extending the age limit for Vermont’s Dr. Dynasaur program from 19 to 26 years old. “From prenatal care, pregnancy, young children, young adults, middle age, as well as older Vermonters,” Houghton said.
Moving more people onto Medicaid could be painful for health care providers since the program doesn’t not pay the full cost of services. “If there’s a way to allow people to get covered that would also allow for hospitals to cover their costs, we are open to that,” said Devon Green with the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems.
But there are lots of unknowns surrounding bringing in potentially tens of thousands of Vermonters into state Medicaid, including what it will cost or how to pay for it. “I would doubt that the entire package, as introduced, would be affordable for what we can do as a state,” said Rep. Anne Donahue, R-Northfield. She says any expansion should start with seniors, who have more expensive medical care and don’t have full health care coverage. “They have all of these costs that we know they can’t afford.”
Observers say the proposal also does not address the cost drivers of health care in Vermont including the state’s aging demographic, prescription drug prices, inflation, and staffing shortages.
Houghton, who chairs the Healthcare Committee, says there are a lot of factors that are out of our control and that her committee will address some of those in the coming days.
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