House Healthcare Committee forwards budget-adjustment recommendations on hospitals, provider stabilization and Medicaid items to Appropriations

The House Healthcare committee met to review department Budget Adjustment Act (BAA) requests and unanimously agreed in a straw poll to forward the committee’s recommendations to the Appropriations Committee for the state budget process.

Committee members spent most of the session reviewing a spreadsheet of BAA line items submitted by agencies. Key positions included support for a one-time $10,000,000 general fund provider-stabilization request (which committee members asked appropriations to ensure preserves the original $4,000,000 intended for substance use disorder organizations), an increase of $150,000 to the household insurance survey (raising that appropriation from $400,000 to $550,000), and acceptance of Medicaid-related caseload and utilization increases reported by the Department of Mental Health and other agencies.

The committee also recorded concurrence with required rate changes for federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) and hospice, which committee members described as mandated annual adjustments. Staff backlog and redetermination support for health access eligibility—identified as the AU staffing request to finish redeterminations—received committee support to address the backlog. Committee members supported contracting authority under Act 167 (the health care transformation effort) to hire a contractor to help hospitals and other providers carry out the next stage of work described in the Act 167 recommendations.

Members noted several items on the spreadsheet were duplicates (for example, an additional listing for the $10,000,000 provider-stabilization request and an ACO reconciliation entry) and removed duplicates from their recommendations. The group treated several Medicaid-driven increases as entitlements and therefore not discretionary for the committee to deny.

Committee members asked appropriations to preserve the intent of prior appropriations: specifically, that $4,000,000 originally set aside for substance use disorder organizations remain allocated as such even if included in a larger stabilization package. Members also discussed a $100,000 philanthropic request and discretionary items such as Planned Parenthood funding; Planned Parenthood funding was noted as discretionary and not yet on the committee’s compiled list.

The committee assigned members homework: read the Green Mountain Care Board’s Act 167 report and recommendations (the committee will have the document posted and printed copies available on request). The committee said it will discuss the Act 167 recommendations at its next meeting and encouraged members to prepare questions.

The committee’s recommendations on the reviewed BAA items will be forwarded to the Appropriations Committee for consideration in the budget-adjustment process.