Weekly Round up #4

Week number 4 was last week and it flew by with several important issues coming before legislators. Here are some of the highlights:

Government Operations, Mark Higley of Lowell reports the Reapportionment bill was passed out of committee late Friday on a 9-3-0 vote. The three no votes were from the 3 Republicans. Prior to this vote there was consideration for a plan presented by Rep. Hubert of Milton that would have Burlington sharing a seat with Winooski for its 10th seat. This plan would have eliminated the need to collapse a District elsewhere in the state and lose a Representative there. This proposal was defeated. Then, Rep. Higley presented a proposal to collapse a District in Bennington County which was defeated. Finally a proposal from Rep. Jewett (D) collapsing a District in Rutland County (pitting 3 incumbent Republicans to vie for 2 seats) was presented and considered. Earlier, Representatives from Districts affected by the 3 proposals were asked for their input and for any compromise plans. The only group that came back with an alternate proposal was the Rutland group with the help of Rep. Devereux (pitting 2 incumbent Democrats to vie for 1 seat). This was the proposal that was receiving the bipartisan support after a suggestion from Rep. Townshend (D) to (combine 2 one seat Districts pitting 1(R) and 2 (D) incumbents to vie for 2 seats). That evening the committee worked well into the evening and was told a bill had to be passed before leaving. Consensus was building for the bipartisan plan when the Democratic leadership started pulling their members from the committee for private meetings. Shortly after, the chair announced we are done for the evening and will meet back in the morning. Friday we had Rutland County and other Representatives affected by the bipartisan proposal sit in and discuss other tweaks to the districts. While no one was completely satisfied with the new changes, they seemed more palatable to those affected, so a third proposal was considered. After the chair stated all three proposals will be voted on, only two were. The 2nd one (Rep. Jewett's), passed on a 6-5-0 vote. This third proposal was never voted on. For a very accurate version of the events in committee, Nancy Remsen's article in the Burlington Free Press on 1/28/2012 says it all!

The Health Care Committee has been continuing to take testimony on H-559 (this year’s big Health Care Bill) reports Rep. Jim Eckhardt of Chittenden. More issues from last year’s Act 48 are surfacing. Some of the big things that folks should be aware of is the inclusion of Dentists and Vision folks into the BISHCA rate review process. This process will eventually be turned over to the Green Mountain Care Board. This is a new power grab when the GMCB has already admitted that they are over worked. At the current time it is just dental and vision however there is talk in committee about expanding that list. Also, there is the addition of a new Health Care Plan. They want to add the Basic Health Care Plan. This plan would expand Medicaid coverage to 200% of the federal poverty level. It is currently at 185% of fpl, again a grab at a bigger piece of the pie without knowing anything about the plans or costs. The administration is asking for permission to seek a dual eligibility waiver that will allow DVHA (Dept. of Vermont Health Access) to capture the Medicare money from the federal government. At the current time the doctor bills Medicare and gets paid by Medicare (federal). The Medicare rates are considerably higher than Medicaid rates. The administration wants to step into that process and have the doctors bill DVHA. DVHA will then turn around and bill Medicare. DVHA will then pay the doctors. The concern is that DVHA will receive Medicare funds and distribute Medicaid funds to the doctors for the service they provided. At the current time doctors cannot survive at all on Medicaid as the reimbursements are way too low to even break even. This is the reason doctors have stopped seeing Medicaid patients. Obviously we have voiced our opposition to this plan. Next week we will start to discuss who’s in and who’s out of the exchange. Stay tuned as this can only get more interesting as time goes on.

The Judiciary Committee began the week discussing H.419, a bill relating to an uncontested dissolution of a civil union between two parties that are not Vermont residents, reported Rep. Vicki Strong from Albany. Currently in order to get dissolution of a civil union at least one of the parties needs to live in Vermont for 6 months prior to the dissolution. Committee discussion involved how to change that statute so the parties did not have to live here for the 6 months prior to the dissolution.
Concerning the State Hospital discussion, Judge Amy Davenport came into the committee to share with us some of the difficulties of having mental health patients in scattered facilities around the state. The transporting of the patients is difficult and takes a lot of time. She expressed the need to have a courtroom facility at wherever the State Hospital will eventually be located for the benefit of the patients. Opiate Addiction continues to be of great concern. Chadd Lackey, from the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation, a student of the connection between prescription drug abuse and heroine addiction spoke to the committee. We were very grateful to have had the information in the presentation given here in our State House. The committee continues work on other bills too such as mortgage foreclosures, harassment and bullying in educational settings, and others.

Rep. Anne Donahue reports that after a harrowing week of increasing pressure, the Human Services Committee voted 9-1 to a mental health services plan that includes construction of a 25-bed hospital adjoining the Central Vermont Medical Center, 4-year initial contracts to provide state funding for renovations at the Brattleboro Retreat and Rutland Regional and payment for inpatient care for a total of 20 individuals in the state's care and custody. It also supports a huge infusion of resources in community residential and other services in order to support the goal reflected by this reduction of the number of inpatient beds that existed at the Vermont State Hospital: to meet needs in people's home communities. A critical piece is a clinical oversight system that will help ensure that individuals are "in the right place, at the right time," and are neither stuck in a level of care beyond what they need, or are unable to access what they do need.

Work continues in the House Institutions and Corrections Committee reports Rep. Linda Myers from Essex. Vermont State Hospital bill received discussion and the committee attended a public hearing Tuesday afternoon on the “Mental Health System of Care”. Forty-three people spoke during the two-hour session presenting comments from people from all walks of life. In the committee room it was more, more, more discussion on the State Hospital including phone conversations with Rob Simpson, CEO of the Brattleboro Retreat, and Tom Huebner, president of the Rutland Regional Medical Center. For most of Thursday and Friday the committee waited to get the bill from the Human Services Committee. When the committee stopped work late Friday it was expecting a bill Tuesday. The plan is to spend the day Tuesday going through it. Then it will go on the floor Thursday and Friday.