Connecticut healthcare employment COVID recovery stalls out

Download the report Like other Connecticut workers, healthcare employment was hit hard by the pandemic in March 2020, according to data from the CT Department of Labor. While the pandemic sharply increased demand in a few healthcare sectors to care for COVID patients, other sectors declined as people and providers delayed non-COVID care. That began…

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Connecticut individual plans are profitable

Download the report here Individual coverage in Connecticut, , has been more profitable than most states. From 2011 through 2018, each month $55 of premiums went to profit in Connecticut, the 15th highest profitability among states and above the US average of $47. Individual plans in Massachusetts and New York were far less profitable, while…

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CT ranks 5th among states in Medicaid coverage, 2nd in quality

COVID has emphasized the importance of a strong, healthy Medicaid program for states. A new analysis by WalletHub ranks Connecticut fifth among states in 2021 Medicaid coverage. Rather than just using the percentage of state residents with Medicaid coverage, the ranking included quality, spending, as well as eligibility and enrollment. We ranked 2nd in quality…

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Cost Cap finds hospital system costs driving healthcare spending, but we knew that

Download the report In a surprise to no one, the first analysis by the Cost Cap project finds that inpatient and outpatient hospital services are a main driver of rising healthcare spending in Connecticut. Hospital and drug costs have been identified in multiple studies as the main drivers of rising health costs in our state.…

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CT life expectancy good news

Connecticut residents can expect to live 1.3 years longer than other Americans, according to a new CDC analysis. Based on age-specific death rates in 2018, well before the pandemic, Connecticut residents lived longer than all but four other states, Hawaii (#1), California, New York, and Minnesota. Connecticut also ranked 5th in life expectancy at birth…

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AccessHealthCT report offers roadmap to address disparities

Access Health CT has published a new, very well-researched description, both quantitative and qualitative, of Connecticut’s health disparities and COVID’s impact. The graphic on page 2 following the lives of two boys, Marcus and Tyler, born on the same day but into very different circumstances, makes the impact tangible. I’ll be using it as a…

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State Partnership Plan losing money but still more expensive than average CT plan options

Download the report Connecticut’s most recent public health insurance option, the Partnership Plan 2.0, offers healthcare coverage to municipal employees. According to a new analysis by Brown & Brown Insurance, Partnership Plan premium increases have not kept up with costs. The very impressive analysis is based on Freedom of Information requests; very little information on…

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CT 4th best among states in dental health

An analysis by WalletHub finds that the dental health of Connecticut residents is better than all but three other states (Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota) and the District of Columbia. We rank third on oral health but tenth on dental habits and care, which is confusing but far better than the converse. The analysis compared states…

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CTNJ: If The COVID Vaccine Is Free For Patients, Who Is Paying For It?

Federal law ensures the COVID vaccine will be provided to every American at no cost. So who is paying for it? Because it’s healthcare, the answer is complicated and we are all paying for it – mostly through taxes and a bit through our insurance premiums. Read more

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Book Club — Counting: How We Use Numbers to Decide What Matters

I’ve never dog-eared as many pages in a book as Counting: How We Use Numbers to Decide What Matters by Deborah Stone. It’s very trendy to be “data-driven” and assert that “science matters” but what gets counted and how it’s defined make all the difference. Numbers and statistics are nice, but only if they represent…

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