Testimony of Lori J. Pelletier,
Secretary-Treasurer,
February 15, 2005
Good Morning Senator Crisco and
Representative O’Connor and the Members of the Insurance and Real Estate
Committee I am Lori Pelletier and I serve as Secretary-Treasurer of the
Connecticut AFL-CIO, I am here to testify on behalf of our 900 affiliated local
unions from all across this great state who represent 211,000 working men and
women.
First let me say that we applaud
this committee’s effort to deal with the growing problem of health care in this
state. Unfortunately my affiliates and their members face the onslaught of
diminished benefit levels every time they sit at a negotiating table. It’s an
extremely uneven playing field when it comes to insurance coverage, and many
employers, good employers are struggling with the decision to provide health
care or not. One way to begin to repair this horribly broken system is to make
it easier and more cost effective for employers to provide health care. As we
all know, just because someone doesn’t have health insurance doesn’t mean they
don’t get sick or injured it just changes the treatment options.
Access to high quality and low cost health care should be a right in this
state.
We are supportive of legislation
that allows for employers to provide health insurance to employees at a
reasonable rate. Costs are spiraling out of control and people are falling
through the cracks, this places an unfair burden on the system itself. Government’s
role should be to ensure that all people regardless of their income will have
access to the same quality of health care.
This is a “win-win” situation because it is both employee and EMPLOYER
friendly, how can anyone be against that?!
So we are supportive of the
following bills before you today and look forward to working with this
Committee and the entire General Assembly to craft a plan that will finally
provide health insurance to all citizens of
S. B. No.
1034 (RAISED) AN ACT ESTABLISHING THE NUTMEG HEALTH
PARTNERSHIP INSURANCE PLAN.
H. B. No.
6654 (RAISED) AN ACT CONCERNING SMALL BUSINESS ACCESS TO HEALTH INSURANCE.
H. B. No.
6655 (RAISED) AN ACT CONCERNING COST SAVINGS UNDER SMALL EMPLOYER HEALTH PLANS
AND THE STATE EMPLOYEE HEALTH PLAN.
H. B. No.
6656 (RAISED) AN ACT CONCERNING GROUPS COVERED UNDER THE STATE EMPLOYEE HEALTH
PLAN.
Proposed H. B. No. 5710 AN ACT CONCERNING COVERAGE FOR UNINSURED
INDIVIDUALS UNDER THE STATE EMPLOYEE HEALTH PLAN.
Proposed H. B. No. 5714 AN ACT CONCERNING RATING FOR SMALL EMPLOYERS
WHO PURCHASE INSURANCE THROUGH THE STATE EMPLOYEE HEALTH PLAN.
We are opposed to the following bills because as written they would further reduce the level of health care for employees.
Proposed S. B. No. 140 AN ACT CONCERNING HEALTH INSURANCE POLICIES WITH
REDUCED BENEFITS.
Proposed S. B. No. 141 AN ACT CONCERNING THE AVAILABILITY OF HEALTH
PLANS WITH FLEXIBLE DESIGNS.
Proposed
S. B. No. 432 AN ACT CONCERNING HEALTH PLANS WITH FLEXIBLE BENEFITS.
Thank you for holding this public hearing and if you have any questions I’d be glad to answer them for you.