On the heels of GE’s announced pullout from Connecticut, Elliot Joseph, president and CEO of Hartford Healthcare, said the state should ask itself whether it’s doing all it can to create an innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem that goes beyond being “between New York and Boston.”
In a piece posted on Hartford Healthcare’s website, Joseph said GE’s departure goes beyond the state’s stifling tax and regulatory environment.
“GE isn’t running away from its problems,” he said. “It’s moving toward its future,” adding that Boston’s attraction for GE transcended tax breaks.
“We may not have MIT and Harvard in the same neighborhood, but the so-called ‘Knowledge Corridor’ from New Haven to Springfield has world-class universities and colleges, sophisticated medical institutions and lots of business know-how,” Joseph said. “We are building the New Haven, Hartford and Springfield rail line to link these towns and cities, but are we linking our work, our ideas and our aspirations?”
Health care – including hospitals, homecare organizations, biomedical companies, health insurers and pharmaceutical firms – is a major economic driver in Connecticut, but too many organizations in and out of health care work in silos, he said.
While Bioscience Connecticut is a good start, the state needs more, he wrote, adding that Americans want better, lower cost care and Connecticut could pioneer advanced technologies, patient-care practices and new ways to finance care.
Joseph said he envisions teams working on the next wave of products and services in aerospace and information technology, manufacturing and financial services, as well as public-private partnerships that support that work and venture capital backing game-changing breakthroughs.
“By all means, create a fair tax structure that pays the state’s bills without bleeding our economy,” Joseph said. “But let’s do more. Let’s tap into our resources and talent to build a collaborative community of thinkers and risk-takers. Such an entrepreneurial ecosystem will create 21st-century jobs and help sustain a new era of prosperity for our towns and cities. And when companies go hunting for a place with vision, brains and backbone, we’ll be on the short list.”
