No Answers From State Legislators as Furor Grows Over Health Insurance

CT Examiner – Sunday, December 15, 2024
By Robert Storace

HARTFORD — The Insurance and Real Estate Committee failed to advance a single bill during the 2024 legislative session, and opinions remain divided among members and party leaders on whether anything will change next year.

According to several committee members, the failure to pass any bills stemmed from the co-chairs — State Rep. Kerry Wood, D-Rocky Hill, and State Sen. Jorge Cabrera, D-Hamden — being unable to reach consensus on key issues, including a measure to study parity in mental health coverage among insurers and a proposal to allow association health plans in the state.

State Rep. Keith Denning, D-Wilton, said the mental health parity study failed in committee because it was deemed too expensive.

“It would have put an increased cost on the small business and independent plans in the state while not affecting the federal plans that are governed under the federal rules,” he told CT Examiner.

Wood and Cabrera were recently reappointed by Democratic leadership to lead the committee next year.

State Sen. Matt Lesser, D-Middletown, said the committee “remains a hot spot where there is considerable disagreement on some of the important issues. I’m hopeful that the disagreements can be bridged [in 2025], but at this point, I haven’t seen any signs that it will be. … They [co-chairs] could not agree on an agenda. And, without agreeing on an agenda, no bills can move forward.”

Denning said the main source of dysfunction within the committee originated from debates over association health plans, which allow multiple employers to pool together, enabling them to qualify as a “large group” health plan and save money.

Denning described the tension between the co-chairs as palpable, with Wood firmly supporting association health plans while Cabrera opposed advancing the bill out of committee. Denning noted that the co-chairs often held private discussions away from other members, making it difficult to understand their specific arguments for or against the plan.

“We all knew there was a lot of contention. I don’t know whether it was a personal contention between them, because they were both friendly to me. I was willing to work with them on anything they wanted, but it just seemed we weren’t getting anything done as a committee and that was when leadership went into the back of the room,” he said.

All current committee members are slated to return next year besides Denning, who did not seek reelection. His replacement has yet to be named.

Most legislative committees pass at least 10 bills per session, making the Insurance and Real Estate Committee an outlier.

“We definitely dropped the ball,” Denning said, adding that there was a feeling of “being neutered on the committee. … As a freshman and one of 12, I had very little say or clout to help move [bills] forward.”

Additional frustrations arose when committee leadership didn’t show up for meetings and Democratic leadership blocked association health plans from moving forward, according to Denning.

“That was it; that was the key,” he said. “There was a battle between the [committee] leadership and the [Democratic] Party. … I believe that there are Democratic forces in the Senate that do not want the association health care plans to go through because they believe it would [negatively] affect health care plans currently in the market because [then] people would be leaving them.”

Denning, who supported having association health plans in Connecticut, said he believes there was support for the measure on the panel but that Senate Democrats used their muscle to block its passage in the committee.

Kevin Coughlin, chief spokesperson for Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney, D-New Haven, and Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, did not return a request for comment on the role Democratic leadership played on the committee.

Lesser, who co-chaired the committee from 2019 to 2022 and now serves as a member, told CT Examiner his priorities as chair included expanding health care coverage and addressing affordability. He noted that the dynamics between the co-chairs were different this year, but declined to comment on whether he believes Wood and Cabrera should have been replaced.

The group didn’t pass any bills in 2024, but successfully moved 26 bills out of committee in 2023, 27 in 2022, and 36 in 2021.

State Rep. Tom Delnicki, R-South Windsor, told CT Examiner that what occurred in 2024 was unheard of and “didn’t make any sense. … The clock basically ran out [on passing bills]. I don’t expect that [in 2025]. … Sometimes it takes a little bit more than a year to get to know the idiosyncrasies of the people that you are working with. … And once you have that figured out, you are all set.”

Speaker of the House Matt Ritter said he expects a new outlook from the committee in 2025 and many bills to advance. Ritter added that he spoke with several people, including Wood, before reappointing her, and is confident that things will be different.

“It’s not one person [to blame]. That committee had a lot of challenges and problems. … I expect everyone to work better this year and I expect those problems to be addressed,” he said. “Members have to compromise and let bills out of committee they may not love. We do that all the time. … The other thing is that members need to be there and be present and understand the bills. … People need to work a little harder and spend a little more time on their committees.”

For Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield, it all comes down to Democratic leadership, particularly in the Senate.

“There was a bipartisan effort on the part of [Republican] Sen. [Tony] Hwang and Democrats on the committee to move important legislation out of that committee. And leadership — without naming specific names — did not. … I’m very confident that Sen. Hwang will, once again, do a fantastic job working on a bipartisan basis on that committee.”

The two co-chairs campaigned on health policy. Cabrera’s webpage highlights his work to expand “access to high quality, affordable health care by making telehealth services permanent and lowering the cost of prescription drugs.” Meanwhile, Wood’s biography states that she has been in the forefront of “addressing rising health insurance costs.”

Wood did not respond to a request for comment, while Cabrera instead issued a statement outlining his goals for 2025.

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