The Connecticut House voted in special session Wednesday night for three bills that would save Waterbury Hospital from a bankrupt owner, create a $500 million hedge against cuts in President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” and try to curb federal immigration arrests in and around state courthouses.
The approval of the three bills after nightfall was preceded by an all-day debate and party-line vote on a fourth bill adopting a revised version of an omnibus housing bill vetoed by Gov. Ned Lamont in June. Senate votes are planned on all four bills Thursday, and Lamont pledges to sign them.
House Bill 8001, legislation enabling UConn Health to purchase Waterbury Hospital from an out-of-state owner in bankruptcy, passed on a 133-11 vote that reflected the bipartisan negotiations preceding the vote, as well as the hospital’s economic and medical importance to the state’s fifth-largest city and its suburbs.
In an era when hospital chains are dominating health care, the measure also allows the university’s teaching hospital to purchase two independent nonprofit hospitals, Bristol and Day Kimball. UConn has an agreement to buy Waterbury Hospital for $13 million.
Rep. Maria Horn, D-Salisbury, introduced the bill as “a forward-thinking proposal that will protect access to health care for thousands of Connecticut residents while strengthening the state’s public health system for generations to come across Connecticut.”
The bill allows UConn Health to create subsidiaries or joint ventures in order to purchase the hospitals while authorizing $390 million in bonding to support capital improvements at the facilities the health network acquires. The debt will be added to the “UConn 2000” bonding package, the state’s financing program for capital projects at the University of Connecticut.
Rep. Joe Polletta, R-Watertown, who was born in Waterbury Hospital, celebrated the bill as bringing a valued community resource back from near death.
“It’s comforting to know that we have a solution to a problem that has persisted and plagued the greater Waterbury area,” he said.
Horn said the bill is critical to securing the future of all three hospitals.
“Without intervention, we risk losing these facilities and the service that they provide to their communities. The bill we have in front of us offers a responsible, sustainable solution to that,” Horn said.
Curbing ICE activities
The final measure passed Wednesday night, House Bill 8004, was a compilation of unrelated provisions, including a child behavioral health measure incorporating the recommendations of a study group.
“We are happy to see that the legislature is taking up recommendations from the Transforming Children’s Behavioral Health Policy and Planning Committee,” said Christina Gio, the state’s child advocate. “The study of existing behavioral health services and future demand for services is critically important to ensuring that children have access to appropriate mental health services when they need them.”
Among other things, it would increase the age at which people are eligible for autism therapies and services from 21 to 26. It would also require a committee on children’s behavioral health to study existing services for that population and develop a survey for school-based health centers, add three new members to that committee, and require the committee to convene a working group
“Currently, children may need crisis intervention, such as intensive in-home child and adolescent psychiatric services, and be put on a months-long wait list,” Ghio said in a statement. “The study will help the state identify what services children need and plan for the development of a continuum of mental health services for children so that children in crisis are not waiting for treatment.”
It was the least controversial element of the final bill. The measure also would impose a 5-cent charge on mobile phone bills to raise money for a firefighters’ cancer relief fund. Rep. Greg Howard, R-Stonington, said the state should appropriate money directly for the fund, instead of taxing phone bills.
But the provisions drawing the most attention were those intended to curb the activities of Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents in and around state courthouses.
One provision codified in state law the judicial system’s policy barring ICE arrests in courthouses without a judicial warrant. It also expands the ban to courthouse grounds and bans law enforcement from wearing masks in and around courts.
Rep. Craig Fishbein, R-Wallingford, said the measure creates the sense of doing more than it actually accomplishes.
“Advocates outside of these walls think that they are getting protection through this legislation. They aren’t. They’ve been sold a bill of goods,” said Fishbein, a lawyer and the ranking House Republican on the Judiciary Committee.
The bill states that federal and state law enforcement agents cannot arrest or detain someone at a courthouse based on a civil offense, which includes staying in the country on an expired visa. But entering the country illegally is a federal crime, Fishbein said.
“An individual who has entered this country illegally has no protection under this language, even though advocates have been told, ‘You’re protected,’” he said.
Rep. Steven Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport, co-chair of the Judiciary Committee, replied that the bill was valuable even if it only protected a small number of people.
“I personally think this bill goes further than that. I think that this bill also protects many folks who are undocumented,” he said. “All we’re asking is for ICE to recognize the need for order in our courthouses.”
It passed on a 96-48 vote with every Republican and two Democrats, Jill Barry of Glastonbury and Michael DiGiovancarlo of Waterbury, opposed.
CT Mirror reporter Laura Tillman contributed to this story.
