One of the country's top medical journals is touting Vermont's health care reform effort as an example for the rest of the nation.
A study published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine says other states can learn some lessons from Vermont in rolling out health exchanges that are essential to the federal Affordable Care Act.
Doctor Laura Grubb at the University of Texas wrote the report. In a phone interview Wednesday, she said other states should follow Vermont administrators' lead and take matters into their own hands.
As opposed to having a mandate from above pushing it at you, instead, they decided to take their own initiative and go with what was best for the people of Vermont, Grubb said
In her study, Grubb points out that Vermont created the Green Mountain Care Board to slow the rising cost of health care. She says administrators have worked to reduce redundancy and improve transparency, while developing a state-exchange thatwill be 100 percent federally funded.
Vermont has been extremely aggressive, Grubb said. Any opportunity there has been for federal funding, Vermont has taken advantage of it.
The state has been awarded more than $250 million in federal funding for its state health exchange. That's the fifth highest amount among the states, Grubb reports, although Vermont has the second lowest population.
