A group of lawmakers has finally decided to tackle the issue of obscenely high salaries paid to hospital CEO’s and administrative leadership in Vermont. Every time this issue has come up hospital spokespeople hide behind the mantra that they have to pay high salaries to attract qualified candidates. That may be true, but we are living in Vermont, not New York or Boston, and I think we can still attract excellent candidates without having to lure them in with salaries that could pay for three or four front line health care providers.

The purpose of the recently drafted bill states, “This bill proposes to require hospitals to provide information about employee compensation and administrative staffing ratios to the Green Mountain Care Board as part of the Board’s hospital budget review process. It would also direct the Board to ensure that the ratio of administrative employees at each hospital to employees delivering health care services directly to patients is aligned with national averages for similar hospitals and that the compensation for a hospital’s executive and clinic leadership does not equal more than 10 times that of the hospital’s lowest-paid employees who deliver health care services directly to hospital patients.”