Green Mountain Care Board chair backs 135-day cash threshold, urges due process in H.482 emergency powers

Dylan Foster, chair of the Green Mountain Care Board, told the Vermont House Health & Welfare Committee on May 1 that hospitals across the state are under severe financial stress and recommended keeping a 135‑day cash‑on‑hand threshold in the emergency authority bill H.482 while adding safeguards for accuracy and due process.

“You can't look at any of these issues in isolation,” Foster said in testimony, arguing that insurer reserves, patient costs and hospital finances must be balanced when the committee considers emergency powers in the bill. He said the board had previously recommended 125 days but supported 135 days in the draft under review as a compromise that fits within credit‑rating agencies’ “adequate” category.

Foster told lawmakers the board also recommends a paired requirement of a positive operating margin in the prior year so that both liquidity and recent operating performance inform any emergency intervention. To reduce the risk that a hospital could artificially lower its days‑cash measure by prepaying expenses, Foster said the board would consider a six‑month rolling average of days cash on hand. “I think the 6 month rolling…