Beth Roberts, the new president and CEO of BlueCross BlueShield of Vermont (Courtesy photo). On Saturday, Beth Roberts officially took the helm as the new president and CEO of BlueCross BlueShield of Vermont. Less than a week later, the window closed on open enrollment for Affordable Care Act marketplace plans, without any extension of the federal tax credits that made those plans affordable for thousands of Vermonters. It’s no secret that Roberts assumes the role as the health care industry — and her new employer, specifically — faces dire straits. READ MORE BlueCross BlueShield of Vermont has faced serious risks to its solvency and intensely butted heads with Vermont’s main hospital system. All the while, Vermonters face some of the highest health care costs in the country.  In an interview with VTDigger, Roberts said she was optimistic she will turn a new page on affordability in the state.  “My career has been built on running towards the fire,” she said. “Even though it’s in a very complicated state right here, and health care is in a complicated way right now, I think there’s a lot of great work that can be done.”  Prior to joining BlueCross BlueShield, Roberts worked as president of the Beth Israel Lahey Health Performance Network, a Boston-area health care provider. Prior to that, she built her career in health insurance groups across New England, including 20 years working at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care.  During her time at Beth Israel Lahey, she worked on negotiating contracts between the hospitals and health insurers — something that’s primed her, she said, for a healthier collaboration with the University of Vermont Health network. In negotiating past contracts and rates, the insurer and hospital network have had an “ongoing adversarial relationship,” as a state-appointed liaison described it, in part over the costs of care for patients covered by BlueCross BlueShield. In October, the health network gained new leadership under Steve Leffler, who was officially named CEO in January after serving as interim following former CEO Sunny Eappen’s decision to step down in the fall. Roberts joined BlueCross BlueShield on Nov. 10, and worked with outgoing president and CEO Don George to transfer responsibilities during the two months they overlapped. Both of the new leaders at UVM and BlueCross negotiated the new contract for 2026. The outcome was “a better deal than what was expected,” Roberts said, though she did not elaborate further. That work has been a primary piece of Roberts’ first few months in the role. “I think there was a strong desire by both BlueCross BlueShield of Vermont and UVM Health network to do something different,” she said.  She sees more room for cooperation with the state’s hospitals, beyond UVM, like trying to “cut down the noise” and streamline policies across providers and insurers, so that there is less time spent tailoring rates for specific plans and providers. She also noted that the hospitals and insurers can share resources better — things like care managers and quality experts that each entity has.  Both the hospital and the insurer are facing the loss of federal enhanced premium tax credits, the subsidies that made plans on the Affordable Care Act marketplace actually affordable for thousands of Vermonters.  Early data from the Department of Vermont Health Access shows that more than 2,000 people across the state unenrolled from those marketplace plans (including BlueCross BlueShield and MVP Health Care).  Roberts said she is working on finding affordable pathways for those who have lost these subsidies.  She said the insurer is working with Vermont legislators and the regulator to find “wiggle room” in what the plans cover, to make them less expensive.  She is also exploring whether there is appetite for less expensive plans that cover preventative, wellness care and catastrophic care, without as much coverage for some standard care types that fall in the middle of that range of coverage. “Affordable” has become something of a buzzword in the Vermont health care space — and Roberts is no exception to that. But she said she’s also added a new adjective to the mix: sustainable.  She knows that bringing down premium costs in Vermont and making care affordable again is going to take a long, sustained effort.  “We are so far off the mark on affordability in Vermont, with (spending on healthcare) being 19.6% of household income,” she said. “It is going to take a lot of years to get from the 19.6% to a more reasonable level, so we have to keep our eye on that frame for a duration of time before we can shift down.”  Read the story on VTDigger here: BlueCross BlueShield’s new CEO takes over as insurer faces federal and statewide challenges. ...read more read less