Legislative Council presents S.30 to renumber and reorganize Vermont health insurance statutes

On March 20, Jen Harvey of the Office of Legislative Counsel presented S.30, a technical bill to repeal and recodify the health insurance statutes currently in 8 V.S.A. chapter 107 and replace them with a reorganized chapter numbered 107, saying the measure is intended to “update and reorganize the health insurance statutes” and to improve clarity without making substantive policy changes.

Harvey told the council she worked closely with the Department of Financial Regulation (DFR) to group related topics into new subchapters — general provisions, policy forms and filing requirements, group coverage (including Vermont’s COBRA‑style continuation and conversion provisions), termination and replacement, other forms of coverage, child and dependent coverage, internal and external review, required covered benefits (mandates), prescription drug coverage, prevention and treatment of cancer, and service delivery and treatment modalities (including telehealth and audio‑only coverage). She said the draft adds chapter‑wide definitions (for example, “covered individual,” “health care services,” “health insurance plan,” “health insurer,” and “major medical insurance”) so drafting is consistent across the reorganized chapter.

Harvey emphasized the bill’s technical focus: “My point was not to make any policy changes, any substantive changes here, but really just to clarify,” and she described the work as largely editorial — renumbering, moving language, updating outdated terms (for example, replacing references to “interactive television” with modern telehealth terms) and removing obsolete sections. She said some provisions that DFR determined were no longer relevant or no longer allowed under federal law were removed.

The draft would repeal the existing chapter and enact a renumbered chapter 107 in Title 8. The bill includes conforming revisions so cross‑references elsewhere in Title 8 will point to the new numbers; it also contains an interpretive clause stating the technical amendments should not supersede substantive policy changes enacted elsewhere in the same biennium. Harvey said rules, orders, bulletins, forms and guidance issued by DFR, the Green Mountain Care Board and other agencies that refer to the old numbering would remain valid after the effective date until those documents can be updated.

Harvey said the effective date in the draft is Jan. 1, 2026, to allow time for the publisher and agencies to integrate the renumbering into the annual statutory volumes (“green books”). She described this as a possible two‑phase effort: S.30 is phase one; a later phase would move Medicaid‑specific provisions into Title 33 (33 V.S.A.), with cross‑references so the health insurance chapter indicates when Medicaid is implicated but leaves Medicaid provisions in the Medicaid statutes.

Stakeholder engagement and edits: Harvey said the Office of Legislative Counsel shared draft materials with insurers, the Office of the Health Care Advocate, the Department of Vermont Health Access, the medical society and the hospital association to solicit comments. She reported minimal feedback overall, with a few targeted suggestions that were incorporated; for example, a Blue Cross comment led to removal of an obsolete reference. She also noted the publisher flagged a couple of clauses missing from the copy she used to prepare the bill (issues involving the standard and optional policy provisions), and she said those will be restored by amendment so insurer‑facing language remains intact.

Next steps and requested edits: Committee members asked clarifying questions about timing and wording. A member identified as Leslie questioned the use of the word “current” in one section and Harvey agreed to avoid vague temporal phrasing where possible; Leslie also asked that “counseling” be added to the definition of health care services and Harvey agreed to make a note of that suggested insertion. Harvey said DFR would handle any substantive policy proposals (for example, the Medicare supplement/Medigap provisions) in its own DFR housekeeping bill rather than in this technical recodification.

No formal motion or vote on S.30 was recorded in the transcript excerpt. Harvey told the panel the bill is an S. bill and therefore can move through the remainder of the session; she said earlier enactment would ease incorporation into the green book. She asked the committee whether they wanted to pursue the bill and noted her office will finish conforming revisions and work with the publisher on statutory revision integration.

Harvey closed by reiterating that the draft aims primarily to make the statutes more readable and consistent, not to change insurer obligations: “For the most part, we’re really just going through and cleaning up language for consistency, for best practices as far as current drafting style, for clarity,” she said.

The committee did not record a vote on S.30 in the provided transcript; the transcript ends with committee members thanking Harvey and concluding the discussion.