DOLLARS FOR SCHOLARS
COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE
PAGE
PAGE
6
JANUARY 15, 2018 | VOL. 54, No. 3
YOUR ONLY SOURCE FOR REGIONAL BUSINESS NEWS
15 westfaironline.com
‘Hurts us in a big way’ SEN. MURPHY SPEAKS TO REALTORS ON TAX CUTS AND JOBS ACT BY KEVIN ZIMMERMAN kzimmerman@westfairinc.com
D
escribing the recently passed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as hurtful “in a big way,” U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy said that home values in Connecticut, if not the entire country, will likely drop, while vowing to continue fighting to amend or overturn the law. Murphy’s comments came during a Jan. 5 address at the offices of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices New England Properties in Fairfield attended by about 50 area Realtors and homeowners. “It was not a great day for Connecticut when this bill was passed,” Murphy said. The law, he said, was designed “to hurt states that have higher property values and Connecticut is at the very top of that list.” Critics of the new tax law have maintained that its changes to state and local tax and mortgage deductions could be especially damaging to residents of such high-cost states as Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and California. The law increases the standard deduction and family tax credits, but eliminates personal exemptions, limits deductions for state and local income taxes and property taxes and further limits the mort» MURPHY
6
Made in Danbury, Kids page 2
Luke and Jim Barber make one of a pair of father-son partners at Luke’s Toy Factory in Danbury. Photo by Phil Hall.
Enrollment up at Access Health CT NOT UNDONE BY GOP MOVES TO UNDO OBAMACARE
BY KEVIN ZIMMERMAN kzimmerman@westfairinc.com
D
espite uncertainty surrounding the future of the Affordable Care Act, Access Health CT, the state’s health insurance marketplace launched under the sweeping federal legislation championed by the Obama administration, posted another year of net gains in open enrollment for the 2018 calendar year. “We had a very good, excellent year,” said Access Health CT CEO James Wadleigh. The exchange enrolled 114,134 customers during the latest open enrollment period, which ran from Nov. 1 to Dec. 22. That is up 2.3 percent from 2017’s figure of 111,524. About 74 percent of this year’s enrollees signed up for health insurance with some sort
of federal financial aid, such as Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Wadleigh said. Nearly 24 percent of enrollees were in the “young invincibles” group, aged 18 through 34, which Wadleigh identified as one of the organization’s main target groups. Nearly 12 percent of enrollees were new customers; 18 percent were returning customers who had a policy previously but not in 2017; and 70 percent of existing customers returned in 2018. Some 2017 customers found employment with group health insurance coverage or moved out of state, Access Health officials noted. “It was a nice surprise,” Wadleigh said of the enrollment numbers, noting that the recent enrollment period was the shortest — less than two months — since the exchange was formed
under the Affordable Care Act in 2011. Last year, open enrollment ran for three months, while the state exchange’s first open enrollment period was six months. Six of Connecticut’s eight counties, including Fairfield County, saw increases in enrollment, Wadleigh said. although final county-by-county figures are not yet available. The two counties that did not record increases had decreases that were “so slight they were basically flat,” he said. “There are a number of reasons for the increase and it will take us until we complete our annual springtime survey to know them all,” he said. Access Health’s expansion from two to 10 brick-and-mortar locations around the state — including sites in Bridgeport, » ACCESS HEALTH
6