The
Shumlin administration is encouraging state employees with children to consider
dropping the kids from their health care plan, and enrolling them in Dr.
Dynosaur. The
administration says the change could save state employees a lot of money.
Thousands
of middle income Vermonters could see their health care costs spike when a
new federal exchange goes into place in 2014. A group of advocates is urging the Legislature to
create a special state subsidy program to make up the difference.
A provision in Vermont’s health care law called on the
Shumlin Administration to identify several ways to finance a single payer
health care system early next year. But the 2013 date was chosen when it seemed that the state might get
a federal waiver to implement a single payer plan in the next few years. Since that possibility now seems
remote, officials say it doesn’t make any sense to vote on a plan until
at least 2015.
The Green Mountain Care Board
has voted not to include adult dental services as part of the basic benefit
package that will be offered to Vermonters though the Health Care Exchange in
2014.
Physicians
from around Vermont will gather at a conference this weekend to discuss
how they can help reform the state’s health care system. The conference will be held Saturday at UVM.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Randy Brock is
calling for major changes to Vermont’s
regulatory system for health care. Brock wants to dissolve the newly created Green Mountain Care Board
because he says its members are unelected officials who aren’t accountable to anyone.
Fletcher Allen Health Care of Burlington
and the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center of Lebanon, N.H., which have
competed for decades to treat Vermont’s
sickest patients, last week sought federal approval to jointly manage Medicare
patients in Vermont.