Vermont Business Magazine Today Lieutenant Governor Phil Scott, House Minority Leader Don Turner (R-Milton), Senate Minority Leader Joe Benning (R-Caledonia) and fellow legislators called for the Green Mountain Care Board to conduct an independent assessment of Vermont Health Connect. On Wednesday, February 17, the House Health Care Committee took testimony from Gartner Consulting, which recommended Vermont conduct an assessment to determine whether it’s more fiscally prudent to fix components of Vermont Health Connect, transition to the federal exchange or look for an opportunity to work with another state. Many legislators share Vermonters’ lack of confidence that the Shumlin Administration can steer such a process in an unbiased manner. For this reason, the bipartisan group today strongly recommended that the Green Mountain Care Board, in conjunction with the Joint Fiscal Office, oversee this assessment. (See response from Vermont Department of Vermont Health Access below.)
“Vermonters have lost faith and trust in the Administration when it comes to Vermont Health Connect. That is why I don’t believe this assessment should be overseen by the Administration. The Green Mountain Care Board is intended to be an independent regulatory arm for health care in the state, and should be willing to take on this challenge,” Scott said.
“It is our belief that, in order for Vermonters to have confidence in whichever path the state takes moving forward, the Green Mountain Care Board must be the one to recommend next steps – and the Administration must follow all of those recommendations,” Turner ssaid. “Vermonters deserve the opportunity to escape from this maelstrom.”
As the health care regulatory arm of the state, the Green Mountain Care Board is charged with improving the quality of care in the state while stabilizing and controlling costs.
“Vermonters have suffered a long history of broken promises and missed deadlines on this frustrating path to affordable and dependable health care. The Administration has been either incapable of recognizing or purposely choosing not to be truthful about the lack of progress of its efforts,” Benning said. “It’s time to get a realistic assessment that puts Vermonters first, not politics.”
Response from Seán Sheehan, Public Information Officer, Department of Vermont Health Access
"The assessment that Frank Petrus recommended on Wednesday was actually much more targeted. He suggested that the State evaluate what to do with the front-end OneGate software, not the entire system (nor the question of State Based Marketplace vs. a federal model).
"Petrus said that he has Enterprise Architects on his team and they see no reason why Vermont shouldn’t go forward with its core system. He said that Vermont owns one of the best rules engines in the business and that gives Vermont Health Connect a lot of versatility to build upon going forward. He said an assessment should focus on examining two routes: 1) re-working Exeter’s OneGate code to better meet Vermont’s needs vs. 2) moving away from OneGate. He suggested that Vermont engage with Hawaii to do a proof of concept with their gateway and explore what would be involved with a transfer to their configuration.
"He said it would be “a fool’s errand” to go to the federally facilitated marketplace without doing this analysis on how to leverage the strengths of Vermont’s current system and investment.
"It’s also worth noting that a study along the lines of what you describe in the sentence above was requested by the legislature last year and was delivered in the fall. The report is called “Vermont Health Connect: Exchange Options for 2017” and can be found at http://hcr.vermont.gov/sites/
"It shows 1) that staying with Vermont Health Connect is the most effective route, and 2) that the steepest costs of transitioning to a different model wouldn’t be for the transition itself, but rather the ongoing federal user fees, the costs for a separate Medicaid system, and the ongoing impacts on customers."