BELLOWS FALLS-Rep. Leslie Goldman, D-Windham-3, is leaving the Legislature when her third term ends this year. She is also leaving the district she has served, Bellows Falls and Rockingham.
“I’m leaving for a couple of good reasons,” Goldman said. “One, I’m going to be 73, and I think it’s time for young people to step up. Then, I have grandchildren in California. I’m wanting to spend time there. So I’m going to be moving to San Francisco, California.”
Goldman will be sorely missed, said her colleague Michelle Bos-Lun, D-Windham-3, who has shared the two-seat district for four years and called her “my district mate, my housemate, my carpool buddy, and my friend.”
A member of the Health Committee, Goldman “has helped get important legislation regarding prescription drugs, birthing centers, and policies to update practices for school nurses,” Bos-Lun said.
“This past biennium, she also served on the Democratic leadership team helping lead a range of initiatives, including mentoring the newest legislators,” she added.
“I envy the time she will have with her new grand-baby, but I am personally and professionally sorry to lose her as a House colleague,” Bos-Lun said.
Focused on health care
Goldman, a retired family nurse practitioner, has spent all her time in the Legislature serving on the House Committee on Health Care.
“Health care is hard,” Goldman said. “I have been part of the health care committee at a time when our health care system was being exploded — or imploded. I’m not sure what the right word is.”
She cited the report by the Oliver Wyman Group, an independent consulting firm hired by the Green Mountain Care Board, in 2024, which concluded that, given Vermont’s demographic projections and the finances of its hospitals, the state would be facing “dire” consequences.
“I was very much in favor of funding that report because it was found that the hospitals were so vulnerable,” Goldman said, noting that Springfield Hospital’s bankruptcy in 2019 “really woke up a lot of people to the financial vulnerabilities of our hospitals.”
The Wyman report noted that nine out of the 14 hospitals in the state were projecting operating losses that year. “I think that got a lot of people’s attention, and there’s been a lot of work done as a result, trying to stabilize things,” Goldman said.
The controversial report painted a drastic and scary picture of the state’s health care system. It suggested that most hospitals would face operating losses by 2028, and recommended consolidation for struggling, smaller hospitals.
One rural hospital that is not in trouble is Grace Cottage Hospital in Townshend, Goldman pointed out.
“Grace Cottage has done incredible work in finding a really important niche — primary care, rehab, physical therapy, that kind of stuff,” Goldman said. “So I think there’s definitely roles for these facilities. It’s just a question of where they land.”
There were some wins, Goldman said.
“I think the best work that we did on the committee — and I just feel like it was a very collaborative process — was when Blue Cross Blue Shield almost went bankrupt,” Goldman said, noting that the process of resolving the crisis “was a lot of behind the scenes work that I wasn’t necessarily part of, except as a peer leader.”
She said the insurer was rescued “not by legislation, but by the work of our committee in negotiating agreements between the Green Mountain Care Board, the University of Vermont, and Blue Cross Blue Shield.”
“We worked out something that allowed Blue Cross to survive. So I’m being proud of that, because that’s a big achievement,” Goldman said.
One reason the health care system is in trouble is cost.
“Prices were too high, particularly at UVM,” Goldman said. “So the work of the Green Mountain Care Board, along with leadership in the House and the health care committee, worked to reduce prices. That was a good thing. It took about $200 million out of the system, which was really important.”
Then a study found that Vermont had the highest outpatient drug pricing in the country.
“That was for something like infusion rates for people with cancer and auto immune disease, rural people who were getting infusions in the country,” Goldman said. “So when that was discovered, the Green Mountain Care Board and its chair really got involved.”
In 2025, as a response, the Legislature passed a bill to cap the prices of hospital-administered outpatient drugs at 120% of their average sales price, aiming to make them the lowest in the country. Gov. Phil Scott signed the bill into law.
Hard to say goodbye
Goldman said she loves being in the Legislature.
“It’s very interesting,” Goldman said. “It’s important work.”
For her, the hard part of the job is twofold.
“One is personal, which is living far away and having to be away part of the year. Being away part of the week is very stressful,” Goldman said.
“The other thing, because I was in health care, we only get to nibble around the edges sometimes. We have federal and state actors. So we don’t have as much control as we would like,” she said.
Goldman said that as a new representative, she went to Montpelier “thinking that I could have more impact than I found that I could because of the basic structure.”
Still, she said, serving in the Legislature has been “an honor and a privilege.”
She especially enjoys working with the people in her district: meeting with them, and doing some problem-solving for them.
“That’s one of the things that I love,” Goldman said. “I really like interacting with constituents.”
This News item by Joyce Marcel was written for The Commons.