Senate Leadership
June 18, 2006
Williams Says Universal Health Care is His Number One Priority for State
Goals should be coverage for everyone; stabilizing costs and maintaining quality of coverage
State Senate President Pro Tempore Donald E. Williams, Jr. (D-Brooklyn) today said universal health care must be a top priority for Connecticut. Sen. Williams said he would work with legislators, advocates, labor, and the business and insurance communities to formulate new ideas for a universal health care plan for Connecticut citizens.
"As we set out to develop a plan for universal health care, we will have two main goals in mind," Sen. Williams said. "One is to ensure comprehensive and quality health care for all adults and children in the state of Connecticut. The other is to reform the health care delivery system so that we stabilize or even decrease the sky-rocketing costs of health insurance and assist in the retention and creation of jobs."
In 2005, $15 billion was spent on healthcare in Connecticut. Insuring all residents of the state would cost only 2.3% more according to the Universal Health Care Foundation.
Said Sen. Williams, "This will not be an easy task, but we have many bright minds in the advocacy community, the insurance industry, and in the medical profession. We must make every effort to cover the nearly 356,000 people in Connecticut who have no health insurance-that's 11% of our population. There are resources already at our disposal-we spend many millions of dollars to reimburse hospitals and health care providers for the costs of the uninsured. We need to provide better preventative care, and offer alternatives to expensive emergency room care. If we agree this should be the state's top priority, we will be in a position to make it happen," he said.
"Connecticut has been a model for other states on this and related issues from ConnPace to HUSKY for children and their parents. There is no reason why we can't think big and establish a health care system that serves all families and contributes to a better economy for the state," Sen. Williams said.
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Senator Williams’ Larry Cook |
Listing of Leadership’s recent press releases. |
Senator Looney’s Larry Cook |
