痴别谤尘辞苍迟鈥檚 , established by state law in May 2011 and given new powers last spring, is taking over responsibility for virtually every aspect of health care in the state. This month鈥檚 project for the new regulatory board: How much hospital budgets should go up on an annual basis.
The board has established a cap on spending increases of no more than 3.75 percent annually. But as a group, 痴别谤尘辞苍迟鈥檚 14 hospitals are seeking increases of roughly 7 percent for the coming 12 month period.
鈥淲e know there are some legitimate reasons that hospitals might need to grow higher than the 3.75 percent, most of those having to do with circumstances beyond their control,鈥 said , the chairwoman of the Green Mountain Care Board.
The board may allow some increases above 3.75 percent, if the hospitals can prove that they are using the money to make investments that will lower costs in the long run.
But Wallack says the bottom line is that hospital spending needs to be kept under control: 鈥淲e have a responsibility to hold down costs. So we鈥檒l be looking at all of these requests with an eye toward how we can stay within that target, because we don鈥檛 think Vermonters can afford more than that.鈥
She says reviewing hospital budgets is a critical piece of the board鈥檚 efforts to help control health care costs in the state.
鈥淚 think this is significant in two senses,鈥 Wallack said. 鈥淥ne is that hospital expenditures are a very significant portion of the total health care spending in Vermont. 聽The other is that this is the first time that the responsibility for hospital budgets and the responsibility for insurer rates has been in the same place.鈥
The board will hold a public hearing on the hospital requests in the middle of August. It will issue its ruling about the proposed spending increases in September.
Vermont is in the process of becoming the first state to have a single-payer health system. Gov. Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, to see the single-payer system implemented as early as 2016, a year earlier than previous estimates.
This story is part of a collaboration that includes , 聽and聽Kaiser Health News.
