Connecticut’s budding stem cell industry is getting a boost with President Barack Obama’s removal of restrictions on federal funding for research on human embryonic stem cells, which reverses an eight-year ban instituted by the previous presidential administration.
Connecticut, which created the first funding program for embryonic stem cell research following the ban with a 10-year, $100 million initiative in 2006 and has already awarded $30 million in grants, is considered to be well-positioned to receive new federal funding opportunities in light of the policy reversal.
As part of the $787 billion economic stimulus package passed last month, the National Institutes of Health received $10 billion to spend over the next two years.
However, as states look to close mounting budget deficits, some may scale back funding for such programs in hopes that the federal government could fill the void, according to several national reports last week.
Next week, there will be a two-day meeting in New Haven of stem cell researchers from around the world.
Moving Forward
House Speaker Christopher Donovan’s proposed health care pooling plan is one step closer to becoming a reality.
The Generaly Assembly’s Insurance and Real Estate Committee last week voted in favor of the bill, which would open the state employee health insurance plan to municipalities, nonprofits and small businesses.
The bill passed the committee by a 14-5 party-line vote, with Democrats voting in favor of it.
Donovan is a proposing a self-insured pool, which would make the state the primary insurer, paying for medical claims out of its own coffers and eliminating overhead costs that insurance companies incorporate into premiums. Opponents say it will increase costs for the state.
