The outlook isn’t as bleak as it looked three months ago for federal funding for Vermont’s new health insurance program for low-to-moderate-income families.
In July, the state was notified by the federal Department of Health and Human Services that it would provide Medicaid support for Catamount Health to serve families earning only up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level.
The state had originally expected support for the program to serve families earning up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level.
The upshot was that months before the program’s November 1 startup date, it was already facing an estimated $10 million funding shortfall in its first two years.
But now the Douglas administration has received word that the federal government will make up about $6 million of that expected shortfall.