The Senate Health and Welfare convened Wednesday to identify legislative priorities for the session and to hear from the state’s newly installed health commissioner. Committee members led by Chair Jenny Lyons said lowering health‑care costs, expanding access — particularly in rural communities — and maintaining quality will guide their work this year.

“We’re gonna take on some time just to talk amongst ourselves about our interest and topics, topical priorities,” the chair said, opening the meeting and urging members to flag bills for follow‑up. Members repeatedly raised worries that gaps in insurance coverage push people to emergency departments and strain hospital finances.

Ray Hildebrandt, who introduced himself to the committee as the department’s new leader, framed his remarks around protecting public‑health trust and strengthening community connections. He described the department’s role across 12 district offices and about 600 positions and said public‑health work is often invisible when it succeeds. “When public health is doing its job, nothing bad is happening,” he told the committee.

Hildebrandt outlined core priorities that match the committee’s agenda: outbreak detection and response (he cited a recent pertussis cluster in a Washington County school), immunization access and countering vaccine misinformation, improving access to maternal and pediatric services, and modernizing emergency‑medical services reimbursement so ambulance crews can treat more people outside the emergency department.

On immunizations, the commissioner warned of recent misinformation and of international changes in schedules that he said lacked medical justification; he told senators the department and its partners are coordinating guidance and outreach for providers and families.

Members pressed the commissioner on how policy proposals will intersect with payers and regulators. Lyons said the committee will request testimony from hospitals, insurers and the Green Mountain Care Board as they review bills that could shift where care is delivered and how providers are paid.

The committee agreed to continue the conversation in follow‑up hearings and to review bills in greater detail over the next several days, with a fuller discussion of hospital transformation planned in the next meeting.