Stalled: Government-run health care proposals

Approved: Some reforms

(June 7, 2007) During the 2007 regular session, the General Assembly chose not to move forward with a government-run health care system and instead enacted legislation focusing on expanding existing public programs and increasing the use of electronic medical records.

Both chambers passed emergency-certified bill SB-1484, which combines components of both Senate President Pro Tem Williams's SB-1 and House Speaker Amann's HB-6158, and addresses some of the health care reforms the business community has advocated.

This bill expands eligibility for the state's existing health care programs (including HUSKY and SAGA), improving outreach efforts for these programs as well as developing the framework on which to build a system of electronic medical records and health information exchange. 

It also establishes a Connecticut Health Information Network that will link the data of the state's various health- and social services-related agencies.

What’s more, the bill addresses another critical need by increasing Medicaid reimbursements to providers – which will help reduce cost shifts from Medicaid to private-sector payers.

Unfortunately, the bill also creates two new government authorities that are charged with exploring various health care reform efforts – including the imposition of a government-run, single-payer system and a system of universal primary care access.

But the ultimate fate of SB-1484 rests with negotiations over the new state budget and the fact that the bill’s price tag is nearly $400 million over the next two years.

Gov. Rell said she would not sign the bill until an agreement was reached on a new state budget. One of the bill’s major provisions alone, the higher reimbursement rates for providers, will cost taxpayers $150 million. Proponents of the bill, however, said most of its costs will be picked up by federal payments.

Pooling efforts die

Various bills that would begin to impose some form of a statewide government-run health care system on Connecticut's citizens died in the legislature.

Specifically, emergency certified bill HB-7433, which would have created a statewide health insurance purchasing pool -- a first step to a single payer system -- was not acted upon by either chamber by the end of the regular session. 

Also, HB-7314, which would have eradicated Connecticut's current employer sponsored health insurance system and supplanted it with a costly and unsustainable single payer system, met a similar fate.

While the legislature has officially closed its business on the 2007 regular session, CBIA urges lawmakers not to revive failed efforts for government-run and controlled health systems during the special session.

For more information, contact CBIA’s Eric George at 860-244-1921 or georgee@cbia.com

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