Joseph J. Crisco, Jr.

Crisco Wins Senate Vote, Final Action for Healthcare Oversight, Pooling Bill

State Senator Joseph J. Crisco , Jr. (D-Woodbridge), the Senate chair of the legislature’s Insurance and Real Estate Committee, today led an extended debate and earned Senate passage of a comprehensive healthcare reform bill. The Senate’s affirmative vote represents final legislative action on the bill, which now advances to the governor’s desk for his expected signature.

Senator Crisco said the omnibus bill creates multiple ‘pools’ of municipal workers, other non-state public employees, and employees of non-profit companies for enrollment into competitive healthcare plans, taking advantage of economies of scale to reduce overall healthcare costs.

“A key contributor to the spiraling cost of healthcare is the complexity of the system through which health insurance is provided and administered,” Senator Crisco said. “Provisions of this bill will help streamline the health insurance landscape and add to it a large number of new participants to further reduce costs.”

Beyond the sheer numbers, Senator Crisco said there are other compelling reasons to include municipal workers, other non-state public employees, and employees of non-profit operations.

“In scores of small towns across Connecticut, a relatively few municipal employees can join literally tens of thousands of others to stabilize coverage plans—that stability, along with the economies of scale, will save money for town governments and the property taxpayers who underwrite those governments,” Senator Crisco said. “In the non-profit sector of our economy, upon which so many vital social services depend, the limited cash flow and small numbers again present very few options for employers to provide coverage, so joining these new, expanded pools will multiply their options and divide their costs.”

Senator Crisco said the bill also creates within the purview of the lieutenant governor’s office an Office of Health Reform and Innovation (OHRI) and a Sustinet Health Care Cabinet to further study and analyze Connecticut’s system for healthcare insurance coverage and make recommendations for additional reform.

“Among the many good features of this bill, it also helps Connecticut join the 24 other states working to align themselves with the federal law in general and more specifically, the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which extends coverage for young adults and prohibits denial of coverage for certain other young people due to preexisting conditions,” Senator Crisco added.