 Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Kevin Mullin, chair of the Green Mountain Care Board, and I'm about ready to call this meeting to order. And the purpose of this meeting is to have an open public hearing and hear from the public about the proposed QHP rate filings that are before the board now for MVP and Blue Cross Blue Shield. Unfortunately, we're still working remotely. So it's not as easy as it used to be for someone we would just meet at City Hall in Montpelier. But we have had feedback from a lot of other people who are very grateful that they don't have to drive to Montpelier and saving the cost of gas and everything else. So there are plus and minuses to either way. But in any event, this is a two hour public hearing. And we are here to listen to you. And so if you're familiar with the team's setup, you can click the raise hand function. Or if nobody else is speaking, you can just offer your name and I'll recognize you. When you begin speaking, if you could just state clearly your name and the town of your residents, and that would be very helpful for us as we record all the public comments. For anyone who's shy, we do have an open written public comment portal that's now available by going to our website and you can enter a public comment there as well. So with that, I'll ask if there are any members of the public who wish to comment at this time. Well, before I do that, let me have the board introduce themselves, talk a little bit about themselves. And I also want Mike Fisher to introduce himself and talk about the help that might be available for people that could possibly need it if they're in certain circumstances. So we're going to go in order of seniority on the board. And again, my name is Kevin Mullen. I live in Rutland, Vermont. I am the chair of the board for two more weeks. And then I'm retiring. So with that, I'll turn it over to Jessica Holmes. Great. It's nice to see folks on the screen here. My name is Jessica Holmes. I live in Cornwall, Vermont. And I have been on the board for over seven years. I will turn it over to Robin Lunge. You're muted Robin. The audio is not working. She's going to sign back in. I will turn it over to Tom Pelham. Well, good late afternoon. I'm Tom Pelham. I'm from Arlington, Vermont. I now live in Berlin just outside of Montpelier. And I've been on the board four and a half years. I've been on the board for five years now, close to five years. And, but I, like Kevin, Kevin beat me to it, but I, I'm heading for the retirement field at the end of September. I volunteered to stay through the rate review and hospital budget process. And it's keeping me awake at night. So I will turn it over to the other Tom. Good afternoon. I'm Tom Walsh. I live in Berry. I'm the director of health policy and health systems. And I'm a physical therapist. I've been on the board for six months. All right. Let me try this again. Can you hear me now? We can. Awesome. This happens frequently with my teams for some reason. Hi everyone. I'm Robin Lunge. I'm from Brattleboro, Vermont. And I currently live in Berlin as well. Coincidentally. And I have been on the board. It will be six years at the end of September. So welcome and looking forward to hearing folks stories. With that, Mike, if you could introduce yourself. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chair and thank you board members. Mike Fisher here. I am the state healthcare advocate. And in, and I live in Lincoln. And in addition to the role, the official role that my office plays in these proceedings today. Right now, I just want to mention the role that the HCA plays in support of Vermonters. And so if anybody on this meeting has a comment that thinks that they could use some help, I just want to make sure you know of us as a resource. We have eight lay advocates who are on the phone every day, helping people with all kinds of access to care problems. And you can reach us to find us on Facebook. You can find us on the phone at 800-917-7787 or an email at HCA, HCA at vermontlegolade.org. And that's it. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mike. And thanks for all that you and your team do for Vermonters throughout the year. So with that, again, if you're familiar with teams, just click on the raise hand function and I will call on you. Or if you're not familiar or if you're just calling in, you could just speak up and I'll recognize you. And again, if you could state your name clearly because everything is recorded by the court reporter for the official docket and then say the town that you reside in. So with that, I'll ask for a public comment. Does anybody wish to offer a public comment at this time? There are no hands raised. So if anybody wishes to speak up, please do so. As a matter of course, we will keep this line open for the next two hours anyways to make sure that if anybody is still working and is unable to come on at this time that they would still get a chance later to come on and offer their public comment. And if we don't hear from the public, we may start telling stories here. So that will be real boring. So if any member of the public wishes to offer public comment, that would be great. Next from our executive director asking what we should do. Susan, you might have missed. We're going to hang in here for the next two hours. So if you have any good stories or anything that you would like to tell, feel free. And we're hopeful that there may still be some people working that will want to join us and offer up. This is not going to be an easy year for people. So I fully expected that we would be overwhelmed with public comment this year as we have with the written public comment. And maybe that's one reason why we're not getting much on the verbal public comment is that people have chosen to put everything in writing. And the last time there was 141 pages of written comment. And some very impactful comment too. I think on our comment form, comments were up to 185 is a count. So, and I'm guessing like the board has 40 ish so I'm guessing there'll be another five ish pages tomorrow too. We do have about 80 comments that have come in this week that I will update for tomorrow. So, there'll be quite a few more pages coming in. That was Jennifer from the Green Mountain care board if that's we're wondering what that voice is. Thank you Jennifer. Again, if anybody has just joined us. We are the Green Mountain care board and we're here to take public comment you can just start speaking if you would like, or you can raise your hand and I will recognize you. And if you do have a public comment if you could begin by saying your name and your town of residents as these proceedings are transcribed by a court reporter and go into the official record for our rate review decisions for the QHP filings for blue cross and MVP. Kevin, this is Jen. Chairman and I was just going to put up the. I prepared a slide so folks would know if they did join that they could either raise their hand or unmute themselves to make a comment if that would be helpful in case folks joined throughout the two hours. Thank you Jen, you're a step ahead. Please do. So let's pick on some people that we see that are here at the meeting. And I see that Charles Becker is here. How are things going so far Mr Becker in your new position that would the health care advocate. I would say so far so good. You know, I mean I was certainly nervous coming into this position it's a pretty specialized area of knowledge and I was hoping I'd be able to pick it up pretty quickly and I feel like it's going well. Reading those actuarial memos for the first time. I wouldn't trust what Charlie says to chair ball and because I'm on the line so he has to watch what he says. Hey Jen why don't we pull down the, the shared screen so we can see each other it as long as we're still chatting. That makes sense. Sure I'm happy to do that yeah. Suggestion. Kevin I, I noticed that representative representative Goldman is here so I just wanted to say hello to her I don't want to put her on the spot but I didn't want to just say hello. Leslie would you like to introduce yourself. Thank you Robin. Hi yeah Leslie Goldman representing Wyndham three, the old Wyndham three. I've been following your work along. It's fascinating. I'm not sure how much of it I get. I sat through the Blue Cross filings. Holy moly. So it's it's a lot of hard work so thank you all for that and thank you chair mullin I've been watching you from afar for two years now. And I hope you enjoy your retirement. I hope to be successful at it so many of my friends have failed and gone back to work. Well I retired from being a nurse practitioner for 37 years and the thing that was really special about it was it was the first time in my life I was in control of my own time. And you know, ever since childhood you know you have to go to school and you have to go here and there. And you don't you just it was very special. Then I did this which of course was I'm still wondering about that but that's a whole nother conversation. But it's a choice and it's an experience and you know thank you for doing that because we need people like you in the legislature that understand health care and and have actually lived it so. Yeah, thank you. I understand what I'm calling the front of the house as a clinician. I don't understand the back of the house which is the financial and that's what I'm learning so it's hard stuff. Well welcome. Thank you. Jen why don't you put the screen back up and again if anybody is here for public comment on the QHP filings for Blue Cross Blue Shield and MVP. We are here to listen and we have a court reporter to make sure it all gets officially into the record. So if anybody does wish to speak either just raise their hands on the team's format or just begin speaking. In any event we will be hanging out here till six o'clock just in case we get some people who are still at work and would like to comment a little bit later. So with that, I guess we can all just work on some of our paperwork on the side and if anybody wishes to say anything just feel free to speak up. I guess we didn't get anybody, somebody at least. Well so many people have sent in their written public comments. It's such a complicated, such a complicated topic to. Well, a lot of those letters were well crafted. Yep. It feels like it's, you know, taking the, you know, the last two years really not pushing public comment. You know, it's we dropped from what pre pandemic like 900 written comments. You know, I think, well, at least I was thinking about, you know, we were, we were always going to lose a lot of momentum. From that and I, it seems like we've been able to gain back a little bit of momentum in the rain comments but maybe not speaking but also I mean I would agree like with the rain comments people seem to have spent a fair amount of time with them. Like they're not, you know, a sentence law, or most of them so it's. I don't know I mean it's honestly I would say to I thought, I mean I didn't think it was going to be like turnout like in pre pandemic. But the lack of turnout for this is a bit of a surprise but at the same time the amount in depth of public comments is a bit of a surprise in all honesty. I was kind of thinking maybe we get 100 if we were lucky. We tried to get the word out is just so hard. Yeah. Well it's probably a little bit of that x exponential factor here too that you know you start with a small group of people that write a written comment and then the next year. They tell their friends write a written comment, you know, especially with the rates going up I mean they've got the wind at their back and that and in that regard and so 141 pages a lot of pages. It sounds like we have a lot more coming to. I think what I would have also heard from community organizations is that they were reticent sometimes just really encourage the. This forum because they felt they were asking their members it was a lot of relive a lot of emotional trauma. It is it's a very it's a very hard experience for a lot of people. Yeah, and so you know I think. I mean I don't know I mean I haven't mean this is something I would ask about. Well, I mean for me post rate review so, but after I finished writing the brief but while you're in the thick of it. Ask about that and try to understand a little better what how they chose to act and how they chose to promote things because it hasn't. It hasn't honestly been something that I kind of. We put the wheels in motion a while ago and have kind of let it run its course and I think it will be time and you know a few weeks to do kind of a post mortem and touch base with you know v perk and rural Vermont and the workers center and and some of the. Local chambers and stuff so. I think we'll have a better insight come. A little book before hospital budget hearings maybe. Well, Jess and Jess and Tom W you've been awful quiet you only have a minute left to entertain us. I moved to adjourn. In one minute I'll accept that. I'll see y'all laughed I got some laughter out of it doesn't that count as entertainment. Yeah. And Tom W can second it. It'll take 30 seconds to vote. We're good. You may you may hear an articulate yes for me even though I'm not allowed to vote. Just to be safe I don't want anybody to say that they didn't get a chance so I'm going to wait till it just hit six. So is there a motion to adjourn. Yes, so moved. So moved and seconded to adjourn. All those in favor of the motion please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed. Thank you everyone. Have a great rest of the night. Bye.