For Immediate Release

July 9, 2009

 

BUSINESS COMMUNITY APPLAUDS GOVERNOR’S VETOES AND URGES LEGISLATORS TO SUSTAIN THE VETOES

Praises executive order creating health care reform advisory board to better prepare Connecticut for the future

The business community is applauding Governor Rell’s decision to veto two costly health care bills, “pooling” and “SustiNet,” and is urging legislators to sustain the governor’s vetoes.  Businesses are also pleased with the governor’s executive order creating a Health Care Reform Advisory Board that will help position Connecticut for national reform.

“The pooling and SustiNet measures are very expensive and risky – and come at a time when Connecticut and its businesses are struggling to get back on their feet financially,” said John R. Rathgeber, president and CEO, Connecticut Business & Industry Association. “Governor Rell was courageous to reject these measures because they fail to provide Connecticut with what it needs most—controlled health care costs, improved quality, and greater access to coverage for state residents.”

The pooling bill would have opened the expensive state employee plan to small businesses and other groups; the SustiNet plan would have created a massive, expensive, government-run health care system.

“These plans would have increased the size and cost state government at a time when it is already facing significant budget deficits,” said Rathgeber.

Neither of these state proposals is in coordination with measures being considered in Congress to reform our national health care system. However, the governor’s executive order places Connecticut in the position to quickly react to federal reform once it occurs.

“Creating a Health Care Reform Advisory Board is a step in the right direction and will help Connecticut better prepare policies that are in line with the federal health care reform initiatives working through Congress,” said Rathgeber.

The Connecticut Business & Industry Association (CBIA) has long supported health care reform that improves quality, reduces costs and expands access to insurance. Special interest groups supporting the pooling and SustiNet plans claim the measures would make Connecticut a leader in health care reform. But in reality, pooling and SustiNet would have placed an enormous strain on our state’s tax dollars because the state–not an insurance company–would have had to pay for the medical claims of everyone participating in the plans.

Connecticut just can’t afford to take that risk – not in good times and especially not in the precarious economic times we are facing right now.

“CBIA has worked with legislators, hospitals, insurers and others to promote policies that really do reform and improve the system, not just expand the government bureaucracy. We will continue to push those reforms and encourage our state legislators to do the same—by sustaining the governor’s vetoes,” said Rathgeber.

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CBIA is the state’s largest business organization, with 10,000 members.

 

For more information contact Nancy Andrews, CBIA media relations manager, at 860-244-1957 or andrewsn@cbia.com.

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