Leadership in the House of Representatives is reportedly testing the waters for a special session deal to allow business associations to offer their own health care plans, a proposal that was strongly supported by businesses and many legislators in the General Assembly, but never received a vote.
The deal, however, would also include passage of expanded sick leave for private-sector workers, another piece of legislation strongly pushed by the progressive wing of the Democrat majority in the General Assembly, but likewise never received a vote.
The idea of a trade is to essentially appease progressives in the Senate by approving expanded sick leave in exchange for passing the association health plan (AHP) legislation.
A July 10 email from the Connecticut Business and Industry Association to chambers of commerce across the state indicating that there were “high level talks about holding a special session in the fall,” although CBIA said they are not involved in those talks.
“While many of you probably heard about this already, I hope for the rest of you it shows that this bill has serious legs. The combination of the recent assessment hike from Access Health CT, along with the forthcoming rate hearings for the fully-insured market in September, have put lawmakers and the Governor on the offensive to get something done on healthcare,” wrote Wyatt Bosworth, assistant counsel for CBIA.
The association health care bill was strongly opposed by the progressive wing of the Democrat Party in the General Assembly who claimed it would allow for sub-par insurance coverage but was supported by other Democrats and Republicans to help businesses lower their insurance costs by pooling their resources to purchase large group plans or offer self-insured plans.
House Speaker Matthew Ritter’s office did not respond to request for comment, but House Republican Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, confirmed that such talks are taking place.
However, Candelora said the idea of putting more requirements on Connecticut businesses through expanded paid sick leave in exchange for allowing businesses to potentially lower their healthcare costs through AHPs may be a bridge too far.
“I understand the need to get affordable health care, especially in light of the expiration of all the COVID subsidies that were put in place, but to suggest that we need to trade a healthcare fix by extracting pain from small businesses by imposing paid sick leave on every company is offensive,” Candelora said.
Connecticut currently requires that all businesses with 50 or more employees provide 40 hours of paid sick leave, however, during the 2023 legislative session a bill proposed by Sen. Julie Kushner, D-Danbury, and the Labor and Public Employees Committee would expand sick leave requirements to all Connecticut businesses, while Gov. Ned Lamont’s proposal would expand the requirement to all businesses with 11 or more employees.
Candelora says such proposals are just another onerous requirement on businesses following passage of the Paid Family and Medical Leave Act and MyCTSavings, a state-run retirement plan for workers whose employer does not offer a retirement plan.
“Why do we need to trade this issue?” Candelora asked. “The affordability of healthcare is an important issue for everybody, not just businesses and commerce, it’s for every individual. So, why do we have to attempt to trade this and the reason being is we have so many anti-job Democrats in the legislature in that they won’t vote for a bill that helps businesses unless they can extract flesh out of companies. It makes no sense.”
Candelora said this same deal was attempted during the last days of the legislative session but there were not enough moderate Democrats or Republicans willing to make the trade.
Rep. Kerry Wood, D-Rocky Hill, who championed the AHP bill through the Insurance and Real Estate Committee says she’s heard talk of a special session and is not surprised it would involve AHPs.
“I think there has been discussion of a potential special session and what that looks like is still up in the air. It doesn’t surprise me if people are talking about association health plans because I have heard nothing but pressure to say we needed this passed yesterday,” Wood said. “I assume other legislators are hearing the same thing and a lot of people are saying we should pass this bill. There’s an urgency here.”
Wood says that while she’s heard from businesses and nonprofits regarding their disappointment over the AHP bill not passing as they deal with inflationary pressure, she has not heard similar outcry regarding paid sick leave because most employers are already offering it.
“We put forward an option that would have been helpful and I just don’t know why it wasn’t pushed forward. There was a lot of misinformation put forward, all of it incorrect,” Wood said. “We’re allowing small businesses and nonprofits to pool their risk, they’ve never been allowed to do this in the state of Connecticut. This will help them, day one.”
A last-minute effort by Access Health CT to kill the association health plan bill couched the agency’s financial concerns over potential lost revenue with claims association health plans would not be compliant with the Affordable Care Act – a claim disputed by the legislation itself, which requires AHP coverage to comply with federal regulations.
This year, insurance companies requested an average rate hike of 12.4 percent for policies both on and off Connecticut’s health insurance exchange for individual and small group plans. The request comes following two previous years of double-digit requests and elicited scorn from lawmakers, including Attorney General William Tong.
Sources indicate that talks of a special session are just preliminary at the moment and a special session would not be likely until the fall when lawmakers would be back from summer vacations in enough numbers to hold a session.
“The business and nonprofit community was extremely disappointed when that bill didn’t move forward, and I’ve heard nothing but complaints on cost of healthcare that continue to go up,” Wood said. “It’s not something that can wait, this is real-time expenses.”
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