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Agency outlines Medicaid waiver investments and optional benefits at Appropriations hearing
Summary
State Medicaid officials detailed a range of optional programs, waiver‑funded investments and modest pilot benefits — including permanent supportive housing, new substance‑use wraparound services, pharmacy assistance and community mental health programs — and described how those items rely on Section 1115 waiver authority and state/federal match.
State Medicaid officials used an April 9 briefing to the House Appropriations Committee to catalog programs that are authorized through Vermont’s Section 1115 Global Commitment waiver and to list optional benefits and targeted pilot programs that could be threatened if federal funding or waiver authority changed.
Monica Ogilby, state Medicaid director, and Ashley Berliner, director of Medicaid policy, reviewed a portfolio of programs funded or enabled by the waiver and by other state decisions and gave program sizes and budgetary snapshots where available.
Why it matters: Vermont uses 1115 waiver investments and several optional benefits to support services that sit outside traditional Medicaid entitlements. Those investments — the officials said — total roughly $120,000,000 a year and include programs intended to keep people out of higher‑cost settings or to provide targeted supports for narrow populations.
Officials described several specific programs and the numbers they presented to the committee:
• Permanent supportive housing: Launched…
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