Vt. lawmakers seek to expand Medicaid access
WCAX
A proposal to expand publicly-funded health care coverage is building steam at the Statehouse. Democrats are pitching a plan to extend Medicaid to thousands of low-income Vermonters.
Vermont Representative Lori Houghton, D-Essex Junction, describes Vermont’s health care system as mixed. She says Vermonters are healthier than people in many other states but that the cost of health care continues to skyrocket. “We still have an accessibility and affordability issue for Vermonters and we need to fix that,” Houghton said.
Thirty percent of people under 65 were underinsured in 2014, according to Vermont’s Household Health Insurance Survey. That number rose to 37% in 2018 and 40% by 2021. “In order to be able to make it affordable, we need to focus on the health care that works, and that’s Medicaid,” Houghton said.