CBIA’s 2007 Government Affairs Program
Priorities

 

Competitive Business Costs

Control health care costs and expand access to quality care:

• Make health care quality and cost data more available to consumers, to allow them to make more-informed medical choices.
• Encourage the use of electronic medical records.
• Encourage employer-based wellness and disease management programs.
• Allow health plans to create more flexible health benefit designs.
• Reduce cost shifts from Medicaid to private-sector payers by increasing the state’s reimbursement level for providers’ costs.

Reduce high energy costs and improve energy reliability:

• Encourage the development of new generation capacity and alternative energy sources.
• Streamline the state’s siting process for infrastructure improvements.
• Support efforts to further develop Connecticut's energy marketplace..

Use the state budgeting process to help drive economic development:

• Adopt a state budget that adheres to the letter and the spirit of the state’s spending cap.
• Target tax incentives for investments in technology, innovation and productivity.

Reject measures that discourage job creation in the state, such as proposals that would drive up workers’ compensation or other costs, or restrict employers’ ability to communicate with their employees.

 

Skilled Workforce

Improve the overall academic performance of Connecticut students:

• Expand the Vanguard School model to extend best practices of higher performing schools to those in need of improvement.
• Ensure that all three- and four-year-old children at or below 185% of the federal poverty level have access to quality early childhood education.
• Expand the role of charter and magnet schools in providing public school choice for more students.

Expand apprenticeship and customized job training programs to better prepare employees for the demands of the global economy.

 

Support efforts to expand workforce housing in order to keep and attract quality employees.

 

Dependable Infrastructures

Encourage further development of Connecticut’s electric generation capacity and transmission system to reduce costs and improve reliability.

 

Better prioritize transportation infrastructure improvement projects as part of a strategic, comprehensive plan to improve Connecticut’s connectivity to global markets.