The controversial effort to create a state-run public option health insurance plan will not become a reality in the face of Gov. Ned Lamont”™s lack of support.
The public option plan is intended to allow small businesses and nonprofits to buy health insurance through the Connecticut Partnership Plan, which is administered by Comptroller Kevin Lembo”™s office.
“I am disappointed that Gov. Lamont has denied affordable health care options to small businesses and nonprofits despite the obvious need and overwhelming support from the public,” Lembo said in a statement.
“This is a missed opportunity that will have real-life consequences for the small employers in our state that have been pleading for help after taking a massive economic hit from the pandemic. To cast them aside is both a terrible message to send and a severe economic miscalculation.”
Although the underlying concept has been that such an approach would create competition with established insurance carriers, resulting in lower premium prices, critics have insisted that the proposal could leave taxpayers footing the bill.
Among those critics are state Republican leaders.
“The Democrat proposal of a public option I fear will not accomplish our shared goal of reducing costs and increasing accessibility and will simultaneously threaten thousands of good paying jobs at a time when Connecticut is last in the country in personal income growth and new jobs,” Senate Republican Leader-Elect Kevin Kelly (R-Stratford) said last November.
The CBIA was also skeptical of the bill, saying the process lacked the necessary transparency and calling for an independent audit.
In February, the CBIA called for the comptroller to commission an independent audit of the plan. That action followed the release earlier that month of a report produced for it by the insurance agency Brown & Brown raising questions about the plan”™s fiscal performance and outlook.
“It is incumbent on policymakers to address the significant questions surrounding the state-run municipal plan”™s fiscal outlook and solvency status, given that it is the model for the public option legislation,” CBIA president and CEO Chris DiPentima wrote in a Feb. 24 letter to Lembo.
