BRATTLEBORO — Dart Everett wrote about the financing of Green Mountain Care, the state's health-care reform plan passed as Act 48 in 2011. He pointed out that the law instructed the governor to submit financing plans to the legislature in early 2013, and that the governor failed to do so.
Everett is right: Governor Shumlin did not meet that perhaps-unrealistic deadline. I am not writing here to defend him.
But there is a clear expectation that in March the governor will present a detailed plan. Michael Costa, deputy director of health-care reform, has been at work developing it, taking into account the various complexities that Everett, Senator Peter Galbraith, and others have been writing about.
This process will allow plenty of time for full discussion of all of the elements: financing structure, benefit packages, calculation of payments to health practitioners, methods of controlling costs, etc. There will be solid numbers to evaluate. The public and legislators will have ample time before the November 2014 elections (and the vote in the legislature in 2015) for a robust discussion of the governor's proposal and to propose changes to it.
I hope that, in that debate, we will not lose sight of the purpose of the law: to provide guaranteed, publicly financed health care for all Vermonters. Green Mountain Care seems well positioned to do that.