House Health Care Committee

Weekly Update - April 1, 2005

The committee has been working through the first draft of the bill, listening to testimony, and marking up the draft. The bill addresses two fundamental health care problems: the lack of a coherent health care system, and financial incentives that work counter to Vermonters' goals. After hearing from the administration, it is clear we have different views about whether or not we have a health care crisis. In testimony before the committee, the administration stated that they do not believe Vermont has a health care crisis. The Health Care Committee strongly believes that we do have a health care crisis that requires reform, not band-aids:

· $350,000,000 annual health care cost increases are not sustainable

· More and more Vermonters are uninsured or under-insured, or are in danger of slipping into that category as health insurance premiums become less affordable.

The House Health Care committee is committed to developing a bill that:

· Ensures that all Vermonters have universal access to essential health care services through a publicly financed, integrated regional health care service delivery system

· Controls escalating costs of health care

· Develops a more efficient, patient-centered, evidence-based health care service delivery system

We are listening to constructive criticism and incorporating good ideas that we learn about from witnesses into our bill. In particular, this week there have been three areas of focus:

Integrated Healthcare: Our vision of a new and better organized delivery system includes: evidence based medicine, patient-centered care, coordinated and integrated care across the continuum, reduced inefficiency and duplication of effort, performance based incentives, information systems that help with coordination, and continual improvement.

This vision has clearly been our intent but did not come through in the current draft so we are improving our language in this area.

Governance: We are streamlining the governance structures that were in our first draft. We are still committed to providing a state governance structure that is better able to provide oversight, planning, cost control, and coordination to improve our health care system.

Services Package: We are currently developing the process for determining the package of services. In developing packages of services to be provided, we will be considering the following: public process, scientific research, evidence-based, health care ethics, cost-effectiveness, anticipated revenues, state health plan and the Health Resource Allocation Plan. The committee intends to:

· provide and enable health services that are at least substantially equivalent as those currently received by Vermonters

· examine ways to provide choices to Vermonters as to service plans and providers

· set up a system to contain costs over time

· consider quality improvement measures

We expect to have a new draft of the bill early next week and will be working aggressively to get the bill out of committee.