Thanks for Nothing
Richard Blumenthal’s ruling that insurers couldn’t re-negotiate contracts, and that the state can’t add in municipal employees into the same pool as state workers, was initially thought to be helpful to the Democrats’ cause. Well, not exactly:
Instead of helping Democrats persuade the governor to open the state’s health insurance plan to municipalities, nonprofit groups and small businesses, an opinion issued by the attorney general has spurred more concerns.“We’re no more convinced today it is a good idea than we were a couple of days ago,” said Jeffrey Beckham, spokesman for the budget office of Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell. (Lockhart)
Speaker in Waiting Christopher Donovan says in the article that the possibility of splitting into two pools was “talked about all the time,” although the article provides some evidence to contradict that:
But House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero, R-Norwalk, pointed to a transcript of the April debate over the bill in the House of Representatives.During that debate, state Rep. Craig Miner, R-Litchfield, said, “No matter who you are, whether you are a public or private employer and employee, you’re actually going to go into one big pool?”
A Democrat told him yes. (Lockhart)
So. Two pools. Where, exactly, is the savings? I guess that the pool of non-state workers will be larger than the individual municipal pools before… but then, why not just create separate pools for them without getting the state workers’ pool involved at all?
At this point, supporters of the bill can’t be holding out much hope–and maybe that’s for the best. Richard Blumenthal’s actions have showed how flawed the bill is.
Source
Lockhart, Brian. “Insurance pool ruling backfires.” Stamford Advocate 29 May, 2008.