Insurance Committee Rejects Some Costly Mandates

Later this year the Lt. Governor’s Healthcare Cabinet will report to the Connecticut General Assembly on what other states are doing to contain healthcare costs.
Question is, will Connecticut lawmakers have added to our state’s high cost of healthcare by that time, or will they have wisely taken a wait-and-see approach?
The Healthcare Cabinet effort is one of two initiatives the state has launched to figure out how to do healthcare better and less expensively.
Which is why lawmakers should reject efforts–such as new health benefit mandates that particularly hit small businesses–that will make healthcare more expensive in Connecticut.
CBIA applauds the Connecticut legislature’s Insurance Committee for doing just that—saying ‘no’ to some of the health benefit mandates it was considering this session.
Not moving certain mandates forward shows the committee understood how the mandates would impact small businesses and the state itself.
However, the committee also said ‘yes’ to a number of mandates that will add cost to the state’s already high healthcare costs.
For example, the bills moving forward include health benefit mandates: HB 5230, HB 5233, SB 36, SB 37, SB 98 and SB 158.

In a year when state policymakers are painstakingly watching every budget line item and avoiding paying for more services, the same holds true for smaller employers.
Responding to a recent CBIA survey, employers ranked healthcare costs among their top three business concerns.
Connecticut employers are very concerned about the cost and quality of healthcare because not only do employers help pay for their employees’ health insurance, having a healthy workforce is key to their success.
Instead of passing more costly healthcare benefit mandates, lawmakers should support the ongoing work of the Cost Containment Committee to identify how to reduce the cost of health insurance.

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For more information, contact CBIA’s Jennifer Herz (860.970.4404) | @CBIAjherz