Two major health care access bills meet different fates in Vermont Statehouse
VTDigger
This January, lawmakers introduced two major pieces of legislation, both of which aimed to improve Vermonters’ ability to access health care.
One bill, H.721, proposed expanding the publicly-funded Medicaid program to cover thousands more Vermonters. The other, H.766, sought to diminish private insurers’ influence over practitioners’ care decisions — a move that lawmakers hoped would reduce paperwork and free up clinicians to see more patients.
Now, at the end of the legislative session, the two bills have met divergent fates.
H.766, which supporters have nicknamed the “provider burden bill,” has drawn broad legislative approval and is soon headed to the governor.
Meanwhile, H.721, the Medicaid expansion bill, has been slowly whittled down to a small section of language in the state’s budget bill. Rep. Lori Houghton, D-Essex Junction, the chair of the House Health Care Committee, where both bills originated, said the trimming of H.721 was “unfortunate.” But she called the passage of H.766 “a huge win for patients and providers in Vermont.”