Health Coverage
CTNJ: A recession is coming and it could hit Connecticut healthcare hard
While President Trump disagrees, a recent survey found that three in four economists expect the US economy to enter a recession by 2021. Recessions are a natural part of the economic cycle – it’s not a question of whether it will happen, but when. The last recession, in 2008, hit Connecticut especially hard, and in…
Read More2020 insurance premium requests increase lower for individuals on AccessHealthCT, most of whom are subsidized, older and higher risk
Connecticut insurers have filed their requests for individual and small group premium increases for 2020 with the CT Insurance Dept. Requests vary from an average reduction of 9.8% for CTCare individual plans outside AccessHealthCT, our state’s insurance exchange, to 22% average increases for Aetna small group plans also outside AccessHealthCT. Six in ten people in…
Read MoreACA @10: Conference on the Affordable Care Act’s status and future
Join leaders who helped pass and implement the Affordable Care Act, September 26th and 27th at the Yale Law School for The ACA at Ten, a conference to reflect on the Affordable Care Act. Speakers include Rahm Emanuel, Kathleen Sebelius, and 22 other scholars and policymakers. Speakers will examine the ACA’s successes, shortcomings, and future.…
Read More2019 Connecticut legislative session – what happened and what didn’t happen
Download the full report Connecticut’s General Assembly debated an unusually large number of health-related proposals this year. Some were new and some have been debated for years. Some passed, some were rejected, and some are on hold for next year. As of this writing, only the minimum wage increase bill has been signed into law…
Read MoreState budget deal restores coverage for 4,000 HUSKY parents, a move toward quality-based payments, and insurance protections
Policymakers have reached a $43 billion state budget deal to cover the next two fiscal years, on-time before the end of the session. For health policy folks, there is a lot to like in the deal but a few notes of caution. The best part is a partial restoration of HUSKY parents’ eligibility cuts from…
Read MorePublic option gone but good pieces remain
Negotiations over a public health insurance option in CT have broken down but other good parts of the deal remain. Reportedly, there is a budget agreement to restore HUSKY eligibility for some of the 11,000 working parents cut in 2016. DSS reports found that the large majority of the low-income parents cut from HUSKY were…
Read MoreCTNJ: Better Public Option Bill Looks to Bigger Picture
Rising health insurance costs are crushing Connecticut families and small businesses. From 2008 to 2014 deductibles in our state rose 67% for families and 50% for small businesses. The Connecticut Option, Democrats’ newest public health insurance option bill, not only improves feasibility of the concept but also begins to address the foundations of rising health…
Read MoreAppropriations Committee passes their budget proposal — Still mixed news, but better
Tuesday, the Appropriations Committee passed their version of the 2019-2021 state budget on a party line vote. While they mainly agreed with the Governor’s proposal from February, they did improve in some areas. Good and better news – The committee agreed with the Governor not to cut eligibility for HUSKY parents or the Medicare Savings…
Read MoreDespite concerns, Medicaid buy-in study bill is voted out of committee
While testimony supporting the concept has fallen since last year’s version, on a party-line vote the Human Services Committee voted out bill 7339, which creates a study of public health coverage options, specifically mentioning a Medicaid buy-in. While strongly affirming the need for affordable options, in public and written testimony advocates and others raised concerns…
Read MoreCTNJ: Medicaid Buy-In Sounds Good But A Closer Look Finds Plenty of Risk, Little Potential
Insurance in Connecticut is expensive. Policymakers are desperately seeking options to provide relief for struggling families and employers. There are several good ideas floating around that could help, but the public option based on Medicaid is not one of them. Read more
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