Rell cites cost in veto of health care bills
Published: Thursday, July 9, 2009
By Ed Stannard, New Haven Register
Metro Editor
HARTFORD — Two health care bills
that drew rallies in support from small
businesses, religious leaders and others
were vetoed Wednesday by Gov. M. Jodi
Rell, who called the bills too expensive.
The bills were passed by substantial
majorities in both the House and Senate,
and legislative leaders said they may be
able to override the vetoes.
“These are well-intentioned bills that seek
to address critically important issues, but
they ultimately fail to resolve the central
problems of access and affordability,”
Rell said in her veto letter.
“These bills also raise serious fiscal
concerns that — in a time of record
budget deficits, record unemployment and
record business closures — simply cannot
be ignored. These two bills would cost
billions of dollars before any economic
recovery is complete.”
Speaker of the House Christopher G.
Donovan, D-Meriden, called the vetoes
“a missed opportunity to give a booster
shot to our ailing economy by relieving
struggling families and businesses who
are cutting back due to rising health care
costs.
“One person has caused a setback for
health reform in Connecticut, but there
are thousands who will continue to fight
for the right prescription for our health
care ills.”
One bill would have established the
Connecticut Healthcare Partnership, a
pool that would make the state employees’
health insurance plan available to small
businesses, nonprofit organizations and
municipal employees. It also would have
made the state plan self-insured. The
House passed it 109-36, while the Senate
voted 21-12 in favor. Rell vetoed a similar
bill last year.
The other bill would have created a board
of directors to develop the SustiNet plan,
which would implement universal health
care coverage by January 2011. It passed
the House 107-35 and the Senate 23-12.
Rell said the pooling bill would have
endangered the state’s insurance rating
and increase rates, in part because those
with higher medical costs would be
attracted to the plan.
Robert Genuario, secretary of the Office
of Policy and Management, said Rell
has recommended self-insurance by the
end of fiscal 2011, but that the state has
a favorable insurance contract now so it
would be unwise to switch.
Also, self-insurance would add
administrative costs, a reserve would be
required and “it does nothing to remedy
the issue of providing insurance for folks
that don’t have insurance,” Genuario said.
Donovan said Rell’s veto of the pooling
bill “shows that she lacks a sense of
urgency when it comes to fixing our
broken health care system.”
Rell said the SustiNet bill would restrict
its board to moving in a specific direction
and cost $1 billion per year. Genuario
said the costs won’t occur until fiscal
2012 but “this bill doesn’t even pretend
to come up with a way to pay for it. ... It’s
just not responsible.”
He said the board also would have
no representatives of the insurance
or hospital industries or the business
community.
Rell also signed an executive order
Wednesday creating a 15-member
Connecticut Health Care Reform
Advisory Board to develop health care
policies that would mesh with proposed
federal health care reform. She said
SustiNet would have created a structure
that might not fit the as-yet-unknown
federal model.
Donovan said the SustiNet board would
represent people from across the state.
“Instead, the governor wants to assemble
a group by herself.
“She has not shown herself to be
sympathetic to consumers in health
care,” Donovan said. “I worry about the
composition of a board that is assembled
by the governor alone.”
Douglas Whiting, spokesman for
Donovan, said a special session to take up
the governor’s vetoes is tentatively set for
July 20.
“He has said that we had a strong vote
in the House on the legislation itself and
he expects that vote to hold up,” Whiting
said.
Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney,
D-New Haven, said Senate Democrats
will be polled on which vetoes they have
the necessary votes to override. Looney
said SustiNet would have given the state
a planning process for health care reform
to make Connecticut “Obama-ready,” and
called Rell’s vetoes “a failure of public
policy vision.”
The two health care bills brought the
number of Rell’s vetoes this month to 11.
Ed Stannard can be reached at
estannard@nhregister.com or 789-5743.