Connecticut’s Representatives have Universal Healthcare on Their Minds

By: Amanda Zanetti, CIS Compliance Associate
amandazanetti@cis-partners.com

On May 20th, 2009 Connecticut’s House of Representatives passed two plans that have the potential to dramatically change the state’s healthcare system. “SustiNet (H.B. 6600) would make a new public health insurance choice available to individuals and businesses. The Health Care partnership (H.B. 6582) would open the state employee health insurance plan to municipalities, nonprofits and small employers.”[i]

According to The Hartford Courant, the SustiNet plan is “aimed at achieving universal health care in Connecticut by creating a public insurance pool that anyone could join regardless of their health history.”[ii] While private insurance plans would still exist, this new public insurance pool would create competition between the two. The proposals passed with flying colors through the House (107-35); however, they still have to go through the Senate and Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell.

So what may have caused these proposals to come into play? The New Britain Herald writes, “In Connecticut, the state and most metropolitan areas are considered “highly concentrated” under U.S. Department of Justice guidelines. Consolidation of this kind means an insurer can, without fear of consequences, raise premiums and/or reduce the variety of plans or quality of services offered to customers.” [iii]

This new insurance pool would give residents of Connecticut more options and more freedom when it comes to their insurance plans. In addition, if this proposal is passed, it may slow the rapid increase in health insurance premiums that has occurred all over Connecticut in the past ten years. However, if Connecticut does adopt universal health care, it may be taking on a whole new kind of problem.

For the past two years, Massachusetts has required most of its “residents to have health insurance and provides state-subsidized plans for the poor.”[iv] While the state has the lowest percentage of uninsured residents (2.6%), it has different issues as well. For example, many doctors in Massachusetts are not accepting new patients, or won’t see patients with certain types of insurance, and “rejection rates for low-income adults and those with public insurance were double the rates for higher-income residents and those with private coverage.”[v] This is just one example of the dangers of healthcare reform, but Connecticut’s government may want to proceed with caution when it comes to universal healthcare.

Sources:
[i] http://www.newbritainherald.com/articles/2009/05/25/news/doc4a1b4890543e0170209587.txt
[ii] http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/hc-2universal-health-care0521.artmay21,0,6516996.story
[iii] http://www.newbritainherald.com/articles/2009/05/25/news/doc4a1b4890543e0170209587.txt
[iv] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/health/policy/28massachusetts.html?_r=1&ref=health
[v] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/health/policy/28massachusetts.html?_r=1&ref=health