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FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 2004

NATIONAL REPORT CITES VERMONT

AS “SUCCESS STORY” IN HEALTH CARE

WASHINGTON, D.C. (January 30, 2004) – An assessment of health care in the 50 states, released here today, singles out Vermont for its innovative work in a variety of state-funded health care efforts. The report appears in the February 2004 issue of Governing magazine.

According to the authors, Vermont has had successful innovations and approaches in more distinct areas of health care than any other state. A few of its notable accomplishments:

· Mental Health – The state has one of the strongest laws in the country requiring insurance companies to cover mental illness at the same levels as physical problems. Evaluations show employers didn’t cut coverage; access to mental health services improved and spending increased only slightly.

· Prescription Drugs – In a pioneering 2003 effort, the state joined with Michigan to form a purchasing pool which should help cut its prescription drug bills for Medicaid

· Long-term Care – Vermont has an outstanding record at getting diverse groups to work together. For example, when patients are diverted from nursing homes to less expensive care, the money saved is used to develop more community and home-care programs.

· Insurance Coverage – The state provides insurance to parents at higher levels of income than most states, with at least one very positive benefit: when parents are insured, their children also end up getting better preventive medical care.

“Vermont was really a standout in most of the areas we covered in our reporting,” says Katherine Barrett, co-author of the report. “In fact, the only substantial negative we found in the state was a problem with its state hospital, which lost federal funding last year after inspections revealed that it had many systemic problems. But even there, we were impressed that the state’s mental health commissioner agreed that there were serious problems, and the hospital’s budget has been increased to help address the shortcomings.”

Governing’s analysis of state-funded health care is part of the Government Performance Project, a six-year-old effort, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, to evaluate a wide range of state government management and policy functions. This year’s special report focuses on six critical health care problems facing states: long-term care, public health, mental health, prescription drugs, access to care for the uninsured, and care for children.

The Government Performance Project found and documented the inability of the 50 states’ health care system to deliver improvements in medicine fairly and consistently to many of their citizens. Health care in most states is not just inadequate, the study concluded--it’s deteriorating. “After exhaustive analysis and hundreds of interviews,” says Peter Harkness, Governing’s publisher and editor, “it became clear that there is a health care crisis in America. But it is in no way a medical crisis. It is a fiscal crisis.”

Governing is a policy and management magazine aimed at high-level state and local government officials. An online version of this report will be available at http://www.governing.com/gpp/2004/intro.htm as of January 29. Press releases for each of the 50 states can be found at http://www.governing.com/gpp/2004/press.htm.

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