Various sources have reported the following on recent Green Mountain Care Board decisions. It seems, for the third year in a row, the state’s health care regulator will allow Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont to increase individual premiums by 19.8% and small group premiums by 22.8% over current rates.
Meanwhile, Vermont hospitals asked for a 5.7% systemwide increase in charges for patient care to private insurers, such as Blue Cross Blue Shield and MVP. The Care Board capped those increases at 3.4% for hospital charges to commercial insurers, supposedly “based on state health care affordability goals.”
Can someone please help me understand how insurance companies can be awarded an increase six times the increase given to the hospitals, which actually provide the care? To those who say we cannot afford a one-payer health care system, I suggest we can no longer afford a for-profit insurance company-dominated system.
David Mook
Poultney