UVM Health Network leader to step down amid budget faceoff
By Laura Ullman – Published: Sep. 19, 2025
BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) - A big leadership change is coming to the state’s largest health care provider as it navigates a budget battle with state regulators. UVM Health Network President and CEO Sunny Eappen is stepping down as part of what the network’s board announced on Thursday is part of a larger effort to reduce expenses and streamline leadership.
“On measure after measure, we’re extremely expensive -- way more on administration and management level stuff, not way more on patient care,” said Chris Pearson, a former state senator who now chairs the board VT Health Care 911, an advocacy group working to lower the costs of health care.
Vermonters pay the highest health insurance premiums in the country. Pearson’s group and Green Mountain Care Board officials say one reason for that is high administrative costs at the UVM Health Network, the organization that represents six hospitals and other health providers, including the UVM Medical Center.
“The University of Vermont Health Network does not provide health care; it’s essentially an expensive and ineffective layer of overpriced and unnecessary corporate bureaucracy,” GMCB Chair Owen Foster said during recent discussions over the hospital’s budget.
Another major criticism of the network is its movement of Vermont health care dollars to its financially struggling New York hospitals -- almost $67 million between 2015 and 2023.
Foster says one of the reasons these hospitals are struggling financially is that they have to pay the network’s overhead.
“Yes, we could do better in New York. It’s essential that we have the ability to move funds throughout these institutions. If we didn’t have the New York hospitals, the academic medical center would shrink, and we wouldn’t be able to provide the service and care that we currently have,” said UVM Health Network Board Chair Tom Golonka.
Full story: https://www.wcax.com/2025/09/19/uvm-health-network-leader-step-down-amid-budget-faceoff/