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BlueCross BlueShield of Vermont headquarters in Berlin, pictured in October 2025. File photo by Glenn Russell\/VTDigger<\/p>\nBlueCross BlueShield of Vermont headquarters in Berlin, pictured in October 2025. File photo by Glenn Russell\/VTDigger<\/p>\n
BlueCross BlueShield of Vermont has withdrawn a proposal for cheaper insurance plans that it had intended to offer on Vermont Health Connect for 2027.<\/p>\n
Supporters saw the plans as expanding health insurance options for Vermonters, while critics worried it left people with little coverage and potentially high bills. <\/p>\n
Earlier this spring, the state\u2019s largest commercial health insurer proposed<\/a> a new suite of lower-premium, higher-deductible healthcare plans, called \u201cVermont Basic,\u201d in a bid to make marketplace health insurance more affordable after the loss of federal enhanced premium tax credits<\/a> led many Vermonters to drop their coverage.<\/p>\n But to sell new plans on the exchange, an insurer needs to go through a series of approvals with the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation (the state\u2019s insurance regulator), the Green Mountain Care Board (an independent state board that regulates marketplace plans) and finally the Department of Vermont Health Access, which manages the healthcare marketplace.<\/p>\n In May, the board delayed its approval of the plan until August, when it typically reviews marketplace insurance plans. BlueCross wanted a decision in June.<\/p>\n The board also made future approval contingent on a series of additional requests, including demonstrated premium reductions and approval of BlueCross\u2019s marketing campaign for the proposed plans.\u00a0<\/p>\n August, BlueCross BlueShield determined, was simply too long to wait. On June 25, the insurer wrote to the care board to rescind its plans from consideration.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe are disappointed that we won\u2019t be able to offer this product to the (Vermont Health Connect) market next year. Vermont Basic would have provided immediate premium relief for Vermonters at a time when many are struggling to afford insurance,\u201d Kristina Massari, a spokesperson for the insurer, wrote in an email to VTDigger.<\/p>\n New plans take time and money to prepare for potential buyers, Massari said, neither of which the insurer felt comfortable investing without knowing whether or not the products would even be approved.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Department of Financial Regulation\u2019s leader thinks that the Green Mountain Care Board\u2019s actions \u2014 including the specific requests they made of BlueCross \u2014 went beyond the board\u2019s authority. The department had already been working with the insurer to address any coverage concerns and approve it for the marketplace.\u00a0<\/p>\n The department\u2019s commissioner, Kaj Samsom, wrote the board a June 12 letter that included a three-page breakdown of relevant state laws on various bodies\u2019 regulatory authority.<\/p>\n \u201cThese conditions are beyond the authority granted to GMCB,\u201d Samsom wrote of the board\u2019s additional stipulations. \u201cEach of these conditions relates to areas assigned by statute to DFR.\u201d<\/p>\n The issue follows an ongoing confusion over which state actor should do what, when it comes to healthcare. Legislation passed this year<\/a>, even before the BlueCross Basic came to the fore, called for a better delineation of duties<\/a> between the Green Mountain Care Board, DFR and other state bodies.<\/p>\n Samsom urged the board to \u201creconsider the conditions imposed\u201d on the Basic plan.<\/p>\n The Basic plans would have come with lower premiums because they included markedly higher deductibles \u2014 up to $11,800 for a bronze plan \u2014 than existing BlueCross plans on Vermont Health Connect. The Basic plans also would have kept costs down by offering a narrower, largely in-state network of providers that relied more heavily on prior authorization for out-of-state care.\u00a0<\/p>\n Many board members worried at a May 6 meeting that Basic plans would\u2019ve saddled Vermonters with even bigger bills as they paid for medical care before hitting their deductible or would have driven them to avoid care altogether.<\/p>\n But others, including Samsom, voiced support for simply expanding the insurance options for Vermonters.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMy concern is that the care board took an approach that said, \u2018Unless you can show me that this acts like a BMW, I\u2019m not sure that it\u2019s good for the market.\u2019 That\u2019s a little paternalistic in my view, and it leaves people walking to work instead of having a Chevrolet,\u2019 \u201d Samson said in an interview. \u201cMany Vermonters can\u2019t afford a luxury vehicle. It\u2019s great that we have a state that focuses on the highest quality health insurance, but that also drives price.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Small businesses in particular, many of which don\u2019t provide insurance for their employees and instead rely on staff buying plans from Vermont Health Connect, liked this cheaper option.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Vermont Chamber of Commerce wrote to the board encouraging it to approve the Basic plans: \u201cFor working Vermonters, particularly younger workers, those who are self-employed, employed by small businesses, or do not qualify for subsidies, the cost of coverage has become untenable,\u201d Megan Sullivan, a staff lobbyist for the Chamber, wrote in a letter to the board.<\/p>\n BlueCross BlueShield intends to offer a similar high-deductible, low-premium option for employers in its Blue Edge Business plans next year, Massari said. Those plans are not subject to board approval.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BlueCross BlueShield of Vermont headquarters in Berlin, pictured in October 2025. File photo by Glenn Russell\/VTDigger BlueCross BlueShield…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[177446,77107,97,252,9041,253,315882,202049],"class_list":["post-734046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-bluecross-blueshield-of-vermont","tag-green-mountain-care-board","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-health-insurance","tag-healthcare","tag-vermont-department-of-financial-regulation","tag-vermont-health-connect"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=734046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}