Smart Savings
Book Club: Think Again
You have to read Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know by Adam Grant. We all think our minds are open, but we’re wrong. Intelligence is nice, but the critical skills are rethinking, relearning, and the courage to dump baggage. The Dunning-Kruger effect is real – the people with the most confidence…
Read MoreGood News — Senate passed SB-416 to lower healthcare prices
On Wednesday, the Senate voted 29 to 4 to pass SB-416, An Act Promoting Competition in Contracts Between Health Carriers and Health Providers, without amendments. The bill passed out of the insurance committee unanimously and received overwhelmingly positive feedback in the public hearing. Two lawsuits have been filed against Hartford Healthcare for anti-competitive conduct, driving up…
Read MoreBook Club: The Long Fix
I’ve been avoiding reading The Long Fix: Solving America’s Health Crisis with Strategies that Work for Everyone by Vivian Lee. But this semester, one of my students asked if she could read it for her Book Review assignment. I couldn’t really refuse, so I had to read it too. The author, a physician and healthcare…
Read MoreWhy is healthcare like this?
Healthcare is complicated. It often doesn’t make sense – to consumers, patients, students, policymakers, providers, administrators, and everyone else. The lack of understanding has discouraged people from engaging and slowed progress toward real reform. We’ve heard from people across the continuum that there is no place to find balanced, comprehensive answers that is understandable and…
Read MoreCOVID’s lessons — and what we can do about them
COVID exposed Connecticut’s underlying health disparities to new audiences, receiving a lot of public attention. But what have we learned? A new report from the CT Health Foundation looks at what went wrong, what went right, and what we can build on to fix this long-standing problem. Going back to the old-normal of inequities isn’t…
Read MoreLegislators hear diverse voices favoring competition to control healthcare costs
Update 3/22/2022 — SB-416 passed the Insurance and Real Estate Committee unanimously. Twenty-one organizations and state residents testified in favor of SB-416 in Thursday’s Insurance and Real Estate Committee public hearing. Just three testified against. SB-416 would level the playing field in Connecticut’s healthcare market by prohibiting anti-competitive contract clauses used by large health systems…
Read MoreInsurance committee to hear bill to mitigate consolidation and lower healthcare costs
Download our testimony One of the main drivers of Connecticut’s rising healthcare costs is consolidation in the healthcare market, making health coverage increasingly unaffordable for consumers, employers, and businesses. Next Thursday, March 14th, the insurance committee will hold a public hearing on SB-416, An Act Promoting Competition in Contracts Between Health Carriers and Health Care…
Read MoreCTNJ op-ed: Governor’s plan to lower healthcare costs — what’s in and what’s missing
It’s an election year and voters want relief with healthcare costs and insurance premiums. Governor Lamont has proposed a slate of bills to address the problem. He has a good proposal to limit drug price increases, an unnecessary proposal to draft yet another report on what’s driving up costs, and a bad one to divert…
Read MoreCTNJ Op-ED: How much do CT hospitals spend on administration? No one knows
There’s a growing consensus that hospital prices are the main driver of rising healthcare costs and insurance premiums in Connecticut. The research lays the blame on consolidation in the market. Read more
Read MorePolicy options to control healthcare prices and protect from private equity
Healthcare service prices are the main driver of Connecticut’s rising health insurance premiums. The consolidation of hospitals and providers into large health systems has stifled competition, allowing prices to rise unchecked. Other states have taken action to protect competition in consolidated markets and it’s working. Connecticut needs to act. Private equity funds are buying critical…
Read More