Gov. Ned Lamont said Wednesday that a top priority if he is elected to a third term would be addressing healthcare costs, including potentially opening state and/or municipal employee health plans to the broader public as part of his proposed “Connecticut Option.”
The two-term Democratic governor laid out his vision for a third term — which also includes having the state assume municipal special education costs — during Hartford Business Journal’s Politics & Policy Forum at The Society Room on Pratt Street in Hartford.
The second annual event included a panel discussion with legislative leaders from both political parties: Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff (D-Norwalk), House Majority Leader Jason Rojas (D-East Hartford), Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding (R-Brookfield) and House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora (R-North Brandford).
Lamont and the legislative leaders discussed a wide range of issues, including labor, municipal funding, energy and artificial intelligence regulation.
He said he believes the Connecticut Option — which lawmakers this year approved legislation to study — could help reduce healthcare costs.
He stressed that it is not a “public option,” which he opposes because he does not want the state entering the insurance business.
Still, he said he would support opening the state employee or municipal employee health insurance plans to small businesses and nonprofits.
He also said he would sign legislation allowing association health plans, which would let small businesses and nonprofits pool workers to lower health insurance costs. Similar legislation failed again this year.
“I’m trying to think how I can work with our state employees, retirees and maybe some of you to put together a preferred network where, at your option, you can save some real money,” Lamont said.
The governor also said he wants to get universal childhood education “over the finish line” if he wins a third term.
“I think it’s the best investment we can make” for small business, he said, because it “allows moms and dads to get back to work.”
Another “big idea” he unveiled is to have the state assume responsibility for special education costs.
He said that, especially in small towns, growing and unexpected special education costs can be a burden on local budgets, which is “not good for the kids, and it’s not good for us.”
Lamont and the Democratic legislative leaders also defended controversial labor-related bills that were approved during the session.
A warehouse worker quota bill passed early in the session, drawing criticism from business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which argued some distributors would avoid Connecticut as a result.
Lamont described warehouses as the “factories of the 21st Century” and said the state was simply putting “common sense” worker protections in place.
Harding, however, said during the legislative panel that while the state must protect workers, it also needs balance in determining “what is ultimately so burdensome that it prevents businesses from coming here and stifling development.”
Asked what policy change Democrats are missing that would help businesses, Candelora proposed merging the legislature’s Labor and Commerce committees.
“Those two committees work at such opposite ends of the spectrum,” he said, adding that having labor and business leaders “in the same room at the same time” would benefit both sides.
Rojas pushed back on the idea that Democrats are hostile to business.
“We want to see your business grow. We want to see you employ our constituents,” he said, adding that there are now more business-oriented Democrats in the legislature.
Duff said Democrats have been strong “fiscal stewards,” particularly in paying down the state’s unfunded pension liabilities, which Lamont said are nearing 70% funded.
Duff acknowledged that the legislature can “always do a better job” of managing expenses, but said “for what people expect in a state like Connecticut, we try and deliver those things and protections for workers and certain benefits.”
