Congratulations to Vermont and especially Mark Larson, the Commissioner of the Department of Vermont Health Access.

NPR ran a story this morning on how much money various state governments are paying to private contractors to run their health insurance call centers, focusing on a company from Connecticut called Maximus. While it's clear that these contracts are worth millions to Maximus, in most states it's impossible to find any information about how much Maximus is getting paid.

Not Vermont, though. Vermont is singled out for its transparency.

NPR reports:

Vermont's exchange handled things differently. It has posted on the internet a complete, unredacted copy of its contract with Maximus. The document spells out everything from how long a call can be on hold to how quickly it must be answered.

Mark Larson, the head of Vermont's exchange, explains: “We are spending taxpayer dollars and we understand our responsibility to ensure that there's transparency in how those dollars are being spent, to whom they're being given, and what we get in return for them. And we want to make sure that it's easy for Vermonters or others to find that information.”

Around here we don't hesitate to point it out when our state government does something wrong, so this is an opportunity to point out that in this area Vermont has gotten transparency right.

12 thoughts on “Transparency in health care”

Did NPR mention the $200 per hour no-bid contract, the other no-bid contracts, the medical turf war that has succeeded in preventing compassionate volunteer medical/dental care to Vermonters at NO cost to the patient or taxpayer?

http://dissidentvoice.org/2009…

Maximus?

Uh-oh.

one thing VT has done right. The other details are deplorable.

Problems taking place are encountered by those who need to use this system — there have been some carveouts & exemptions so everyone is not in the same boat, such as government employees at least in VT, which was essential to making the plan work & be affordable. For those who are not in the ‘lucky few’ club & experiencing the problems — and there are many — it doesn’t look quite so rosy.

Many will be shunted to Medicaid but cold comfort for the false promise of “If you like your doctor…”

the most salient point here — it’s official! Vermont gets an A+ in transparency. Shove it in your carpetbag Bruce Lisman & your CFV-bots too!

Around here we don’t hesitate to point it out when our state government does something wrong, so this is an opportunity to point out that in this area Vermont has gotten transparency right.

it has been in the post WW II period,

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is another

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12 thoughts on “Transparency in health care”