3 | EXTENDED SERVICE March 20, 2017 | VOL. 53, No. 12
9 | GLOSSOPHOBIA
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Connecticut health care industry blasts ‘Trumpcare’ plan BY KEVIN ZIMMERMAN kzimmerman@westfairinc.com
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rea hospitals and health care organizations have given their opening reviews of the proposed American Health Care Act - and they aren’t good. “Most of the hospitals in this state are already losing money,” said Dr. John Murphy, president and CEO of Western Connecticut Health Network and president of Danbury and New Milford Hospitals. “As written and as it stands right now, the American Health Care Act would put some hospitals and physicians out of business.” Particularly troubling, health care providers said, are the changes in Medicaid. As written, the AHCA would, starting in 2020, reduce the federal matching rate for newly eligible adults from 90 percent of medical costs to the rate for other enrollees in the state. That
latter matching rate ranges from 50 to 75 percent depending on the state, with an average of about 57 percent. “That single change would mean a $300 million cut in federal funding in Connecticut, a $19 million cut to Bridgeport Hospital and an $87 million cut to the Yale New Haven Health System,” said William Jennings, president and CEO at Bridgeport Hospital, a member of the Yale New Haven system. “For us to cut $19 million would be catastrophic.” “But,” Jennings added with a sardonic laugh, “we’d have to figure out how to make it happen.” “There are three keys to any health care legislation: increasing access, making it affordable to everyone and promoting a high quality of care,” said Mark Thompson, executive director of the Fairfield County Medical Association. “As far as we can tell, the AHCA seems to be missing two of those three” » Reaction, page 6
Will replacing Obamacare help or hurt Connecticut businesses? BY PHIL HALL phall@westfairinc.com
Dream Job
See story on page 2
Clay Keller, a cloud and network architect, is the first employee at Canadian tech firm Dream Payments’ office in Stamford.
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onnecticut business leaders are reacting to the Republican bill introduced in Congress to fulfill their pledge to repeal and replace Obamacare (ACA — Affordable Care Act). While many of the details and potential effects of the GOP’s American Health Care Act have yet to be fully analyzed and understood, some businesspeople here have already come out in favor of the effort, while others suggest it needs tweaking and yet others say passing the bill and President Trump signing it into law would be a mistake. “There’s not a lot of changes as far
as pre-existing conditions, covering children up to age 26 on their parents’ policies and the guaranteed availability of insurance,” said Brian E. Rogers, the Stamford-based agency president at The SIG Insurance Agencies. President Trump had promised a swift repeal and replacement of Obamacare during the campaign, while also complaining, “Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.” Jennifer Herz, counsel at the Connecticut Business & Industry Association (CBIA), had some degree of empathy for Trump’s lament. “Health care is complicated,” she said. “I am not mocking the president, but it is a difficult topic. There are a lot of stakeholders: providers play into it, » Health care, page 6