By Katie Jickling
A group of nonprofits are calling on Gov. Phil Scott to abandon Vermont’s all-payer system and the state’s partnership with OneCare Vermont.
The state’s health care experiment has added extra bureaucracy and cost, resources that should be directed to increasing Vermonters’ access to health care, five organizations argued in a statement issued Monday.
OneCare Vermont, a company that oversees the state’s health care reform efforts, collects money from insurance companies, Medicaid and Medicare and distributes it to hospitals in monthly payments. It was created to encourage hospitals to slow health care spending and improve care, by providing regular fixed payments.
Instead, the administrative costs are “sucking money out of the system that could be used for health care,” said Deb Richter, a primary care doctor who chairs Vermont Health Care for All. In Vermont, she said, 40% of Vermonters have “terrible insurance. Seven percent have no insurance. And OneCare doesn’t change that.” continue article at site….