This week and next, Representative Torre and I will share some of the most important legislation from the session. We will also host a public discussion on the 2025 Legislative Session on Tuesday, June 24 at 6:00 p.m. at The Big Picture Theater in Waitsfield. Our senators have been invited to join us. Below, I share updates on education, housing, and healthcare:
Education
While we have been on break, the joint fiscal office and the administration have worked to refine some of the open policy areas in the education transformation bill (H.454). The conference committee met Wednesday, June 11 through Friday, June 13 to finalize negotiations. The full legislature convenes on Monday and Tuesday, June 16 and 17, to review and vote on the bill.
Areas of agreement include:
-the Commission on the Future of Public Education will focus on future district governance, the roles of boards and the electorate, and how new districts maintain local connection
-the District Boundary Task Force will include industry experts and add legislative representation
-class size minimums have been decreased (due to Senate input)
Areas to-be-decided include:
-The criteria for when an independent school can receive public funding for public school students. The House version was aligned with the governor’s proposal, specifying that at least 51% of students in an independent school must be public school students in order to qualify for public school dollars (this includes the four historic academies like Burr & Burton). The Senate advocated for decreasing the threshold to 25%, thus allowing more independent schools to receive public dollars.
-Transformation timeline—the governor and the Senate have asked to tighten the timeline
-Student weights.
-Taxation—mitigating future property-tax increases in current underspending districts, a $425,000 income-eligible homestead-tax exemption, and categorization of property-tax classification.
Health Care
H. 35 unmerges the individual and small group markets that purchase insurance on the Affordable Care Act exchange. The individual market currently receives federal subsidies to reduce premiums for Vermonters. Unfortunately, these are expected to expire at the end of the year. The small group market will have lower premiums as a result of this bill.
H. 266 started as a bill to support 340b pharmacies at Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and Planned Parenthood in dealing with onerous pharmacy-benefit management practices. We learned that the federal 340b program was being used by some hospitals to significantly overcharge patients and commercial insurance to support other programs, and that Vermont is the most expensive state in the country for these costs, charging approximately 600% over the average sales price to commercial insurers. H. 266 puts a cap on prices equal to 130% of the average sales price as determined by Medicare for 2026.
S. 53 requires doula services be paid for by Vermont Medicaid. Doulas support families throughout the prenatal, birthing and postnatal period, and reduce preterm births, low birth weight and postpartum depression leading to healthier families and lower costs.
H.259 prevents workplace violence in hospitals by requiring hospitals to implement an approved security plan. From June 2023 through December 2024, 6 hospitals reported 89 total incidents with injury to staff.
H. 482 allows the Green Mountain Care Board (GMCB) authority to adjust a hospital’s reimbursement rates and to appoint a hospital observer if there appears to be a material misrepresentation of budget submission.
S. 126 The current annual cost for the Silver family plan from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont on the Vermont Health Exchange is $ 58,000 per year, inclusive of tax credits/subsidies the federal government has provided to Vermonters since Covid. Barring action by Congress these credits expire on December 31, 2025 and are unlikely to be extended. This is unaffordable. This bill orders GMCB to use reference-based pricing to set rates; allows the GMCB to review rates of hospital networks; and provides transparency for state agencies to set contracts between providers and payers. It creates a statewide health resource plan, and forms a primary-care committee that will contribute to the development of the plan. Lastly, the bill holds AHS accountable for the work and timeline required in ACT 167 around hospital sustainability.
Housing
S-127 addresses housing and housing development by: allocating money for lower and middle income Vermonters to access financing for house purchases and rentals; offers grants for landlords to bring units up to code; offers support to Vermonters living in mobile homes; protects our labor force by protecting our immigrant population from housing discrimination; creates the Community and Housing Infrastructure Program (CHIP), a tax increment financing program for municipalities and private developers to finance housing infrastructure projects in both rural and urban regions.
Representative Torre will share the final outcome of H-454 negotiations, and the bill vote, next week, along with Part II of our Legislative Session Report.
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