House lawmakers have given final approval to a state budget that relies on hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding that might evaporate by summer.

Plotz, Vermont's top health care regulator, says we're at a breaking point.

And a report out from seven days says Vermont needs to confront a drinking problem.

All that and more.

A head on Vermont this week.

From the Vermont Public studio in Winooski.

This is Vermont this Week, made possible in part by the Lintilhac Foundation and Millne Travel.

Here's moderator Mitch Wertlieb.

Thanks for joining us on Vermont this Week I'm Mitch Wertlieb.

It's Friday, April 4th, and joining us on the panel this week, Peter Hirschfeld from Vermont Public, Collin Flanders from Seven Days and Mickaela LeFrak from Vermont Public.

Thank you all so much for being here.

Pete, I want to start with you.

House lawmakers have approved a 2026 fiscal year budget.

I suppose that's the good news, but there are some serious caveats with this budget concern that lawmakers have expressed over what could happen come summer.

What can you tell us about that?

So as we speak, the Republican controlled Congress in Washington, D.C., is looking at a budget proposal that aims to reduce federal spending by about $880 billion.

And there are a lot of Democrats that say the only way you're going to get that level of reductions is by going to Medicaid.

And so, Vermont, of course, is heavily reliant on federal money generally, but Medicaid funding specifically, we've got about $2 billion worth of Medicaid funding in our budget.

So the House of Representatives, advanced the budget last week, $9 billion state budget that relies on money that could be on the chopping block.

Right.

And so they could find themselves toward the end of the legislative session, finding out that hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue that they had been counting on to fund this budget is gone, and it is going to pose some potentially existential questions about significant numbers of state programs, if that comes to pass.

A couple of quick follow ups there.

When might lawmakers here know whether that money is going to be available or not?

And if it's not?

What do they do next where they turn to?

So, people that I've spoken with in the federal delegation say Memorial Day is on or around when Republicans are hoping to hold that vote.

It's entirely up to the GOP to decide when the timing is.

As for what happens, you're you're looking at, the potential for rethinking the wisdom of spending $100 million in state money to buy down next year's property tax rates.

I talked to the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, who said property tax relief might not look quite as big a priority.

If we're looking at kicking seniors out of assisted living facilities.

We're also hearing some lawmakers, including Washington County Senator and Cummings, who's who's a Blue Dog Democrat, chair of the finance committee, saying if if the harms are going to be severe, we might want to consider a Snelling gas tax increase.

And this was a time limited state income tax increase that was done in the early 90s during a recession era period where Republicans and Democrats came together and said the situation is bad enough that we need to raise state revenues.

That's certainly going to be a conversation if we see the scope of federal cuts, that Republicans are talking about now.

Okay.

But what's Governor Phil Scott's take on that?

I mean, he's never been crazy about, you know, increased fees, increased taxes.

Is he looking at this, though, and the reality of what you were just talking about and saying, well, this is maybe something we'd have to consider.

I put the question to him.

If we see those federal cuts arrive in the form that they're being considered right now, would you be willing to consider raising state income taxes or revenues in order to address it?

And he said, that's not a question I'm willing to answer right now.

So Phil Scott didn't say no way, no how, as he has in the past when talking about the prospect of increasing state revenues.

But he is very clearly wanting to put the focus on how do we reduce spending?

Where do we look to cut before you put income tax increases on the table?

Okay.

The federal situation is really complicating.

So many things at the state level is probably happening while it's definitely happening not just in Vermont, but around the country.

Kyle, I know that you've been covering, some issues with federal grants that Vermont needs for its health department.

About $7 million here.

They're losing that federal grant money.

Yeah.

So just recently, the Trump administration rescinded these grants that were, authorized through Congress during the Covid, the height of the Covid pandemic, as some of these Covid relief bills and these were, grants that were mainly used to, build out our Covid response, especially vaccines, but have been continued to aid our efforts in responding to all sorts of things infectious diseases, health care inequities.

A lot of these organizations that are relying on these funds were expecting them to expire in the coming months.

But I think the immediate, closure of it, took a lot of people by shock.

The state says that, this is going to impact their ability to not only provide flu vaccines, Covid vaccines, but also to do outreach meant to increase the vaccination rates.

And as we know, that's really important now as we see these measles outbreaks across the country.

And so it was a it was a shock and a blow to, I think, the health in this state.

Well, now to pile on, but to kill all the frack you.

I had a conversation recently on Vermont Edition with Owen Foster, the head of the Green Mountain Care Board.

They regulate health care in the state of Vermont.

Can you encapsulate for us what he said and his major concerns?

And he was very concerned about the state's largest health insurer, Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Yeah.

And, also just said we've had a number of conversations on the show recently with, some key players in the world of health care in Vermont, including, Mike Fisher, the chief, health care advocate for the state, doctor Mark Levine, the, head of the Department of Health who just retired at the end of last month.

And Owen Foster, who's the head of the Green Mountain Care Board and, they.

For who?

For folks who don't know.

The Green Mountain Care Board approves hospital budgets and, insurance rate increases.

So, in just a couple of weeks, Blue Cross, which is the state's largest insurer, they sure insure about a third of Vermonters are going to submit basically their request for how much they can increase premiums in the next year.

And, both Owen Foster and Mike Fisher, that's the chief health care advocates say, it's going to be significant, probably around 15 or 20%.

Now, the Green Mountain Care Board in previous years has pushed back on those rate requests from Blue Cross and only approved a lower version of what they asked for.

And Blue Cross, which is now on the brink of financial insolvency.

He has been pointing the finger at the care board saying, you know, we are insolvent because you have not, allowed us to raise rates in the way that we need to in order to cover people's claims.

But something has to give here, because Vermonters already pay some of the highest insurance premiums in the country.

The highest?

Yes.

The highest.

Okay, so again, these rate increases are it sounds like they're coming.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So basically it's a I don't know what the right metaphor is here, but a three part storm.

So yeah, people are struggling.

Our premiums are too high for many people to afford.

Hospitals are struggling.

And we saw this report come out in the fall that showed that many of our hospitals, I think about, a third or so, maybe a little more.

Vermont's 14 hospitals are on the brink of insolvency as well.

And our major insurer, Blue Cross, is financially struggling as well.

So.

Oh, and foster says, you know, without either major subsidies from commercial insurance or, taxpayer there's some hospitals are going to close.

That's what's going to happen.

And you've been covering this as well?

Yes.

Yeah.

I think that hospitals are right now taking a hard look at their budgets.

They're preparing their budgets for the upcoming cycle.

I've been talking to some rural hospital CEOs this week who are saying that they think it's going to be very difficult to hit the benchmarks that the care board has set up.

And the challenge there is that the higher hospital prices go, the more pressure there is on Blue Cross Blue Shield.

I want to bring us back to the beginning of this, that the federal, what's going on is the federal government could have such an impact on this.

It is hard to overstate what major cuts to Medicaid would do for especially these rural hospitals that have primarily low income patient pools.

I mean, it could be completely devastating.

And I will say, I was on this show six months ago talking about that big report that came out.

A lot of the hospitals pushed back on that and said, it's kind of this doomsday scenario.

Six months later, it's looking like where they had it wrong was that they might be projecting too far into the future, that this might actually be coming sooner than we expected.

And a lot of hospitals are struggling right now.

And can I also add is the Medicare cuts that are on the table right now at the federal level are a huge issue, but there's also major cuts that are being proposed to, different health care subsidies, which could make health insurance more expensive, particularly for low income people.

And there's money on the table for these federally qualified health care centers.

So we're not this is not just hospitals, right?

We are talking about things like federally qualified health care centers that provide primary care and dental care to to tens of thousands of low income patients across Vermont.

I've talked to officials in Montpelier who are conveying that if we see cuts from Washington like they're talking about right now, some of those things are going to go under.

Michaela, I again, just to stress how serious Owen Foster was saying this problem is, I don't think I'm telling any tales out of school here when I say that when you interviewed him, he actually started to cheer up over this issue, did he not?

Yeah he did.

He got very emotional, and, and started crying at one point, which was, I think a really honest reflection of the place that, I mean, he's under a lot of pressure.

The board is as is, you know, the heads of these hospitals, the people who work there, people who are trying to afford health insurance right now.

I mean, it's a pressure cooker, and it's, Yeah, it's we're we're in a tough place.

It's hard to put a silver lining on this one.

I mean, this is kind of an existential crisis.

It's an existential question.

If this largest insurer in Vermont one third, you say they cover people in Vermont.

If it did go under, what would happen to the health care system in the state of Vermont?

According to Representative Alyssa Black, who's the chair of the House Health Care Committee, the health care system would cease to exist as we know it.

That's a direct quote from her.

That is why they fashion legislation in Montpelier.

That creates a sort of, emergency financial relief trigger if Blue Cross has finances dipped below a certain threshold.

But but the health care system in Vermont, it's a closed loop system.

If you lose money from somewhere, it's got to come from somewhere else within that system.

So you can't just say they're going to have to pay more.

You're going to have to charge left.

It's it's a system wide problem.

That's that's going to require a system wide solution.

One of the things we discussed, it might have been a week or two weeks ago, because we talk about health care a lot on this show was that University of Vermont Medical Center is one of the few hospitals that was not losing money, this year.

And actually, they were they were told by the Green Mountain Care Board that, you know, there may be some penalties because of this.

It's a little complicated.

Why that is exactly.

But one of the possible solutions was for you, VMC, to give some money to Blue Cross Blue Shield.

I think it was about somewhere in the range of 10 to $15 million.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

What would that help at all?

Or would that just be a little bit of a nudge in the right direction?

I think it's the latter.

Yeah, that's a drop in the bucket.

I mean, I think, I think what the take away from that is that UVM, stance on this seems to be shifting a little bit, whereas they've been very defensive over the last few years when they've been pointed to as an example of exorbitant costs.

They just came out recently in a kind of apologize for their service cuts.

They announced that caused a big stir.

And so I think there is a hope that maybe we are having a bit of, of, coming to the table moment where everyone is in agreement.

We'll see how long that lasts and how the budget cycle plays out.

Okay.

Well, we're all obviously going to watch this very closely.

It's scary.

But you know, we'll have to wait and see.

On some level.

I do think that the as everyone here has pointed out, what's happening at the federal level is really starting to affect states, around the country, especially Vermont.

So there may be some pushback there, but we'll have to see.

Colin, I want to stick with you because you had a feature story in seven days.

That was quite remarkable.

And basically, it's saying that Vermont, the state of Vermont, has a drinking problem, and I'll just I'll just throw one statistic out there.

You said 61% of Vermont adults drink, and that's compared to 52% of U.S. adults.

Otherwise, what does that mean, exactly?

When we say drink a lot, too much, what are we talking about?

Yeah.

So so those are pulled from, national surveys, which are essentially asking people how much or have you had anything to drink in the last 30 days?

And so on its face, I mean, that's not a really remarkable stat.

I mean, for sure, you might have a beer every now and then at dinner, but when you start to pull back the curtain on some of these things, you do start to realize that not only do more Vermonters drink, but more Vermonters drink.

And really worrisome ways, binge drinking rates are higher than national averages here.

And it's not just the college kids.

I think a lot of people start to assume that, oh, it's because we have a pretty healthy college community around here.

It's not.

It's every single age group up above 65 and older, which is where, some of these problems really start to manifest.

The health issues.

And people here drink chronically more than the national average as well.

And, I think we are learning more and more now about even the risks of moderate drinking and the various ramifications that that has.

And so, I hoped that we made the case that it is a time to start really taking a closer look at this problem and what to do about it.

Another stat in your article, 435 alcohol related deaths were reported, in 2021.

That's up 36% from 2017.

So obviously we're seeing some problems just in the last few years.

Yeah.

And those are deaths that are everything from like very closely related to alcohol use, like alcoholic liver disease to some of the things that we're learning more now about, alcohol's relation to cancer and to heart disease.

And so, those are a bit squishy numbers.

They're, they're estimates.

But I think, the takeaway is that we are really starting to feel the impacts of alcohol more and more.

And I will say that's based on 2021.

The pandemic had a pretty serious impact on drinking as well, and we've seen that reflected in national surveys as people were stuck home with nothing to do.

And so I would not be surprised at all to see those numbers continue to climb when we, learn more about them.

I also found it remarkable when you pointed out that, you know, some of this problem has been overshadowed a little bit by the opioid epidemic in Vermont, which is quite serious and very dramatic.

But because, a lot of attention was paid to that over the last few years, maybe that has overshadowed a little bit of this very serious problem, as you say, chronic.

I'm curious about the reaction that your, that came from your article.

What did people in the community say about it?

Yeah, I really think it struck a nerve with a lot of people.

I think not only people who have people in their lives that they recognize maybe have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol, but also people who are starting to take a closer look at their own relationship and, and maybe thinking about, like, a beer or two every night at dinner.

Maybe that isn't serving me as well.

Or am I drinking in an unhealthy way, such as trying to cope with stress or anxiety?

And we are learning more about this nationally.

I mean, just in January, the US surgeon General came out and said that, alcoholic beverages should have cancer warnings on them.

So I think this is kind of reflective of this national moment that we're having, where people are trying to rethink their relationship to alcohol.

And we really saw that.

We got a ton of letters to the editor, and a lot of people call me about it.

I think it really hit home with a lot of people.

Okay.

And that article, again is in seven days.

You should check it out.

I want to turn back to again, some issues that are happening federally.

We know now that, President Trump's tariffs are kind of in full effect.

These are affecting a lot of different countries, including some very friendly countries that we had been friendly with, including Canada.

Here's what, governor, Phil Scott and Senator Pete Welch had to say about these tariffs.

I'm not a big fan of tariffs.

We obviously have, right to defend ourselves in some respects in a trade situation, trade war.

But we started this one a confident country treats its allies with respect.

And these tariffs are going to do direct and immediate economic harm to everyday Vermont families and farmers.

Maple sugar producers, Peter Herzfeld, is this coming out to play?

What are you hearing about from the business community in Vermont over these tariffs?

You know, I talked to, a guy who has a timber business in southern Vermont, who said he saw his access to the Chinese market shut down last month.

He believes a sort of a preemptive strike from China, in anticipation of these tariffs.

But he was able to find a buyer in Vietnam, so felt really fortunate.

But Vietnam was near the top of the list for these new tariffs, 46% tariffs that are being imposed on imports from Vietnam.

And this person is rightly worried, I think that we're going to see a retaliatory retaliatory strike, that, takes away this other option that he's found.

Vermont has $1.9 billion a year in foreign exports.

It's a huge part of our economy.

Some of the, countries targeted with tariffs, might not sound like a big deal, but Trinidad and Tobago, for example, I think is Vermont's sixth largest trading partner.

So, economic officials in this state are worried that this is going to severely shrink access to global markets that we rely on.

And in the short term at least, could put some real stress on the broader economy here.

And we heard Peter Welch talking about maple sugar producers.

Is it true that, a lot of the equipment that a lot of Vermont maple sugar makers use comes from Canada, and that would affect them?

Yes.

And, you know, it's business owners find themselves in these bizarre situations where they're they're getting ordering pieces of equipment that have different types of material sourced from different countries that are not going to be subject to different tariffs.

And so untangling the web of charges that are involved has become a bureaucracy in and of itself for a lot of Vermont companies.

And not something that they're happy to have added on to, to the already difficult day to day of running, running a business on small margins and Canada also, I mean, I know we're very protective of our Vermont maple sirup here, but we also import a lot of their sirup and package it into blends with Vermont maple sirup.

And so those those prices are going up as well.

I mean, that's a really good point.

And, you know, Vermont produces the most maple sirup in America.

But North America, that's our friends in Quebec.

So they they do a lot of that.

Pete, I want to ask you about another story that, you know, Vermont somehow sometimes gets into the national conversation on things.

There was a woman who was taken from Massachusetts, I believe, by Ice officials detained in Vermont before being sent to Louisiana.

Why was she in Vermont at all?

What happened there?

So it it sounds like this was, the ice process.

They, six plan clothes, masked federal agents, as you said, detained this person in Massachusetts and then went to a detention Ice detention facility in Saint Albans, Vermont, which is why it made headlines here before getting on a flight out of Burlington to Louisiana.

But obviously something that a lot of people in Vermont found unnerving, including Governor Phil Scott, who was asked about this at his weekly press briefing this week.

And he said, this action by Ice is something that we should be ashamed of.

He feels like it's stretching the limits of law.

And said he finds it to be a really concerning development, in the Trump administration's mass deportation plan.

Yeah, we're going to we're going to talk about that more.

But, you know, one gets the feeling that Governor Scott is getting a little tired of having to answer a lot of these questions, dealing with federal things from the Trump administration.

You can you can sort of see it.

He's weary of it and talking about it.

Yeah.

Well, you know, there's a version of Phil Scott that we saw in 2016 and 2020 and in the run up to the last presidential election, where, he didn't hold back when he was talking about President Trump.

I mean, he's described that his presidency in the most severe terms, condemned it.

He called on Trump to either step down or be impeached after after January 6th.

We've not seen that level of rhetoric from the governor since Trump was inaugurated for his second term.

We I think we are beginning to see an evolution in his rhetoric.

That that may be leading to a place where we, we see a reboot.

Okay.

And briefly, I want to stick with you on this, Pete.

The governor is, however, getting some criticism locally for what has happened with, the motel voucher program.

Some unhoused people have been, they are now in that 80 day limit.

Not for everyone, though.

I mean, there are some exceptions here, but, what is the governor faced criticism over with ending some of that, motel voucher program.

So he's he's receiving criticism on two fronts.

The executive order that that Phil Scott signed, protects some classes of people in that program, but not others.

Others that the legislature wanted to protect, including, for instance, people fleeing domestic violence situations, people over 65, the governor, the governor's order is limited to, only certain very vulnerable populations.

So there's criticism about that.

But we also saw the legislature's top lawyer say this week that she believes the executive order is unconstitutional.

That it is, a power grab from the executive that belongs with the legislature.

It doesn't sound like the legislature is keen on bringing that to court right now, but certainly that's another element of this dynamic.

The legislature is working on, on, on an alternative budget adjustment proposal, that they hope can resolve all of this, but definitely no clear path ahead right now.

Okay.

Thank you for the update on that.

Michelle, the Frank, want to come back to you about something that's a little more fun to talk about in some ways, this is the annual spring migration season, for which time we got our Vivian Press.

I think we got about three minutes here.

Okay.

We're not going to take all of it the time, but tell us what you've learned about this spring migration.

Frog salamanders.

They need safe passage across the roads.

Okay, I'd call it jump in here because I do care a lot about this story.

It was like, it's a great story needed from everything else we were reporting on.

But.

Yeah.

So, frogs and salamanders are on the move right now.

It is their spring migration.

They're going from their overwintering grounds to their breeding grounds, which are often like vernal pools and marshy areas.

So there's, when the the conditions are.

Right.

So that's, warm temperatures, wet Earth, maybe after a rain, there's mass migrations of all these different species so it could be spotted salamanders.

Who we there with these bright yellow spots?

Wood frog spring peepers that make that little peeping sounds that we all know so well.

And there's some places that are even closing down their roads to make sure that they can, get across safely without getting smushed.

Yeah, I'm glad we brought this up, because there was a this delightful story in the Shelburne news this week about an event they're planning.

And it it contains probably the best quote I've seen all year in Vermont media from Kate Kelly, the herpetology from Hinds Berg, which say that five times fast, describing this species, you can see if you go to one of these spotted salamander were brought up and she described it as the sexy megafauna of the salamander world, which is someone who's always been a little afraid of lizards.

I was skeptical, probably because I've seen Matilda too many times, but I have to say, I googled it and it is really, really cool.

So I'm going to have to keep an eye on this.

And sexy megafauna, by the way, is going to be the name of my new punk band that I will never get to front.

Just so you all know, come out and see us sometime.

People will actually, though, as Colleen was saying, there's events over this.

People will stop by the sides of the road and check this out with flashlights.

But it's also serious.

People are being warned to look out for these little folks.

Don't.

Yeah.

This little.

Yeah.

Don't run over them.

So you know, these are called big nights.

There's also, a lot of folks, herpetologists who are asking people to report data about how many of these critters that they see.

There's the Vermont Reptile Amphibian Atlas that's collecting information.

Because a lot of these are even they're not endangered, but they're, you know, protected species.

And we're trying to protect their wetlands.

And but that's here.

Let them do their thing.

It's it's their time of year.

I want to end on this.

You know, we've been talking a lot about the the federal pressures that are happening and a lot of things coming out of the Trump administration.

Colin, you've been writing about a Burlington woman who is embarking on a Canadian apology tour.

What is she doing?

Yeah.

That's right.

So Karen Chickering, she's a 69 year old from Burlington, and I think she had been feeling what a lot of people had been feeling about the way that, President Trump has been handling Canada.

She was unsettled.

She was upset, and she wanted to kind of put that into motion.

So she drove up to southern Quebec, a couple of weeks ago, and she went into stores.

She bought some chocolate or bought a little thing and then went up to the counter and gave them a poster that she had made that was had Vermont Loves Canada and a heart and, friends by choice.

On the on the poster.

And she asked to hang it up and she, she wanted to say she sorry for what's going on, and I think it resonated with a lot of people.

Sorry.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sorry.

Yes.

And the politeness and we hope to maintain our wonderful relationship with our friends to the North.

Thank you so much for that update.

And that's all we have time for today.

Thank you so much to our great panel, Peter Hirschfeld from Vermont Public, Colin Flanders from Seven Days, and Mikaela LeFrak from Vermont Public.

Mitch Wertlieb, thank you so much for watching and listening.

I hope you'll tune in next week as well.

For Vermont this week.