Opinion: CT must act now to save its health care workers

CT Insider – Wednesday, May 14, 2025
By Barry Simon, Diane L. Manning

Barry Simon is CEO of Oak Hill and co-chair of the Capital Area Healthcare Partnership. Diane L. Manning is CEO of United Services Inc. and co-chair of the Eastern Connecticut Healthcare Partnership. This op-ed was also signed by the Capital Area Healthcare Partnership, the Eastern Connecticut Healthcare Partnership, the South Central Healthcare Workforce Partnership and the Northwest Healthcare Industry Partnership.

Connecticut’s health care system is in a state of emergency — not because of a virus or natural disaster, but because we don’t have enough people to deliver care. And it is reaching crisis levels.

Workforce shortages are now the greatest threat to health care in Connecticut. From hospitals and mental health providers to home health agencies and nursing homes, employers across the state are being forced to reduce services, delay patient care and ask more of already overburdened staff.

The result? Higher costs. Increased burnout. Diminished care. And fewer workers entering the field every day.

This needs to change. With just weeks left in the 2025 legislative session, state leaders still have time to act. But they must act now.

Connecticut has four Regional Sector Partnerships (RSPs) for health care — employer-led collaboratives in the Capital Area, Eastern Connecticut, South Central Connecticut and Northwest Connecticut. Our partnerships are bringing together healthcare employers and public partners to work to solve the workforce crisis together.

Together, these four RSPs represent hundreds of employers who provide care to hundreds of thousands of residents. This is an area we understand deeply, and we want to help resolve this issue before it does become a crisis.

Numbers speak for themselves

Health care accounts for 16% of all jobs in Connecticut — making it the state’s largest employment sector. In Hartford County alone, health care generated $7.8 billion in economic activity and over $126 million in taxes in 2022. It goes without saying how critical this industry is to the health of Connecticut’s economy.

Yet despite its size and economic significance, Connecticut’s health care workforce is underfunded, thus, under-protected and overstretched. If this trend continues, the care that communities rely on will become harder to access and even more costly to deliver.

A unified call to action for the session

As the legislative session nears its end in early June, the RSPs are urging the General Assembly and Gov. Ned Lamont to prioritize the following actions in the final budget and policy negotiations:

First, raise Medicaid reimbursement rates across all care settings to ensure providers can sustain operations and grow staff capacity. This has been a long time coming, and the time to make this sensible step is right now.

Next, invest in workforce development programs, including tuition support, clinical placement expansion, and training pathways in rural and high-need areas. These are the areas where greater investments can immediately begin to pay dividends.

Provide income tax relief and loan forgiveness to attract and retain healthcare professionals. They want to be here and there are many places about Connecticut that make it attractive maintain their careers here. They just need some incentives to make it possible.

Fund nonprofit providers that deliver critical services with low reimbursement, especially in behavioral health and long-term care. Nonprofits have struggled in recent years as available funding has become more and more limited. This will give them the help they truly need.

Finally, address workforce barriers such as housing, child care, and transportation, especially for workers in underserved communities. This is the help is most needed.

These solutions aren’t new. They’re evidence-based, employer-backed, and immediately actionable. What we need is political will to make them happen.

The stakes are too high to delay

We cannot fix the health care system if we don’t fix the workforce. That starts with listening to the employers who know what’s broken and what it takes to fix it.

Lawmakers have heard from associations, advocates, and agencies all session long. Now it’s time to deliver results for the workers and communities who can’t afford to wait another year.

Let’s make sure this session ends with a win for health care workers, patients, and Connecticut’s future.

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