Col#260/10/12/25
FISCAL SHOCK
By
Richard Davis
Brattleboro Memorial Hospital (BMH), our small community non-profit hospital, is facing what looks like its most challenging financial situation in its 121 year history. It is frightening for the 807 employees (as of 2023 according to an August 2025 IRS 990 filing) who depend on the institution for their livelihood. The prospect of having to lose access to a local hospital would also change the lives of 40,000 people who live in Windham County.
Sadly, it is not clear what is going on at the hospital because the board of directors has not said much other than putting the CEO on leave. Hospitals are notorious for hiding their dirty laundry and BMH is no exception. I worked there on and off for about 14 years and I was always at odds with many of the higher level management team.
There was one occasion that sums up this mentality. An employee was caught doing something blatantly illegal and, rather than call the police and be subject to public scrutiny, BMH decided to quietly fire him. Business as usual. I suspect that if they could have kept the current fiscal crisis out of the public eye the BMH board would have tried to keep it quiet much longer.
But the organization that oversees hospitals, the Green Mountain Care Board, noticed irregularities in how BMH reported its financial status and made the following statement. “We are deeply troubled by the quality of BMH’s budget submission and its reporting because the hospital may be at risk of a sudden solvency crisis, which would potentially harm its community and the state-wide system of care,” regulators wrote. “We have a duty to establish hospital budgets that, among other items, ensure the economic operations of the hospital, preserve access and quality, and contain costs at BMH and the statewide health system, regulators continued. We cannot fulfill this duty when a hospital misrepresents its financial data and then refuses to address its errors.”
There has been no public explanation by the BMH board of what is going on with BMH finances. The board is ultimately responsible for whatever happens at the hospital and their silence raises a lot of questions that should be answered. BMH is a non-profit institution and that means it is not paying taxes on its primary enterprise, the hospital. One would think that the board would feel an obligation to be straightforward with the public, but the opposite is the operational philosophy.
Why did they put the CEO on leave? Why is there no mention of the role the Chief Financial Officer may have played in this crisis? Was the CEO feeding the board false information? Did the board have accurate information and think that they could solve the problem on their own?
A number of years ago there was an effort to create a law that would require hospital board meetings to be open to the public in Vermont. The bill never got traction partly because of the influence that hospital board members have in the community and partly because many legislators serve on hospital boards. I remember one board member who said at the time, “If board meetings are open to the public I will resign.” The smoke-filled back room decision making process seems to be alive and strong in Vermont even if no one is smoking.”
The crisis has been made even worse than it could be by the appointment of two board-member doctors to share the job of interim CEO. They are highly regarded and extremely competent medical providers, but having loyal insiders steer the ship that they may have caused to veer off course is not the right move for this community.
We need fresh eyes. We need someone without loyalty to anyone to work on cleaning up this mess. I hope the board is looking for someone to replace the doctors as soon as possible, if even temporarily. If not, then all of us are being subjected to the outdated mentality of the doctor knows best.
We need answers now and the public should be outraged at the way this situation is being handled by the board. The Green Mountain Care Board has threatened placing an independent observer to take over the hospital. That would be the first step down a slippery slope. If the BMH board places their own independent person to run the hospital this community could retain some degree of control over the hospital’s future.
We need to be vocal and demand transparency and accountability before it is too late.
Keep it goin'
I heard you on Franz’s radio show on WVEW today talking about Brattleboro Memorial Hospital and the issues above.
Good discussion, and one that needs to continue. It’s not just BMH, either. Most small hospitals in the state are in a similar boat with GMC.
Narrow Horizons
The apparently-impending doom of BMH is a great example of how constrained our horizons are. Our community’s hospital, like many around the state, is on the brink, a situation that will presumably get worse once the big medicaid/medicare cuts kick in.
But even in the face of such an existential crisis, the possibility that the provision of health care should be treated as a public good and guaranteed to all is miles away from the bounds of polite society. None of our elected leaders will go near it. The D/P supermajority – when it existed – wanted nothing to do with universal healthcare.
Now the GMCB, supposedly created to transition VT to single-payer, now exists to oppose that, and fiddle around with funding formulas and added middlemen.
It’s weird that the answer to a normal question like “how will we provide the people of this county with good quality hospital services they don’t need to drive forever for?” gets answered with some version of “how much money is the hospital’s billing department taking in?”
RE: "many legislators serve on hospital boards"
“because of the influence that hospital board members have in the community and partly because many legislators serve on hospital boards.”
(1) I didn’t know legislators were allowed on hospital boards.
In the past, I have experienced horrendously bad medical treatment,
not in Brattleboro, but in other places that serve Vermonters.
I recall, before recreational marijuana was legal in Vermont,
a doctor told me I could not have a refill for a needed prescription
if I did not take a drug test for illegal drugs.
I told him, go ahead, I don’t take any illegal drugs.
This was when I was campaigning prior to 2018 to legalize
recreational marijuana in Vermont.
I never won an election. Marijuana did win.
Now, as I read this, I see that if there were legislators on the
hospital board at the hospital that doctor was associated with,
then they could have influenced him to withhold a necessary
prescription unless I took a drug test for illegal drugs.
That would have clearly put politics before my right to decent
and honest medical treatment.
That is just one bad experience I have had as a political
influencer in Vermont with medical doctors.
Look at the hole in my face in more recent photos.
Since a medical doctor did that to me, prior to 2022,
I was never allowed in a candidate debate or forum in 2022.
The medical doctor refused to sew the hole shut.
He wanted to do fancy expensive plastic surgery,
and I wanted him to just sew the hole shut, and he refused.
Was he influenced by legislators on the hospital board
where he worked?
Did legislators influence him to make me look ugly?
The list goes on and on.
Next, let’s talk about money.
There would be plenty of money for medical treatment for
everyone if the United States Congress would repeal
the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, their favorite gravy train.
Did you ever notice how much money the pharmaceutical
industry is making?
You pay your taxes to the I.R.S. and then the U.S. Congress
votes to give billions of your hard earned tax dollars to the
N.I.H. (National Institute of Health) and they hand out your
hard earned money to University and other Laboratories
for research, design and development of new prescription
drugs and medical devices.
The lead researcher is allowed to own the U.S. Patent to the
newly invented Rx drugs and medical devices under the
Bayh-Dole Act of 1980. The lead researcher then makes a
deal with a pharmaceutical corporation to produce the newly
invented Rx drugs and medical devices
and sell them around the world for BILLIONS and BILLIONS
of dollars in profits.
WHERE IS YOUR SHARE? YOU PAID FOR THE R&D!
We, the people, paid for the research, design and development
of the new prescription drugs and medical devices
with our tax dollars paid to the I.R.S. and then the U.S. Congress
voted to give them to the N.I.H. the National Institute of Health
which gave them to laboratories, where under the Bayh-Dole Act
orf 1980 the lead researcher becomes mega-wealthy owning
the U.S. Patents.
This is how some of the rich get richer, while the taxpayers get
poorer.
Some people call this modern day slavery,
some people find that term offensive.
What do you want to call it?
We are getting robbed blind!
If we got our fair share of profits or dividends from the sale
worldwide of the Rx drugs and medical devices
we paid to create
that would be a huge help in paying for health care for everyone.
This is a money laundering scheme invented and passed
into law in 1980. The lead researcher and pharmaceutical
corporations making all the profits then donate some to
non-profits, making themselves look good, and the non-profits
donate a slice of the pie to political action committees
and they give it out as campaign donations
to the politicians who keep their mouths shut about
this nice little money laundering scheme.