2 | GREENWICH GRANOLA July 11, 2016 | VOL. 52, No. 28
8 | YOGA WITH A TWIST westfaironline.com
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Partners find factory jobs for college grads BY KEVIN ZIMMERMAN kzimmerman@westfairinc.com
A Rory McMellon, left, vice president at McMellon Bros. in Stratford, with lathe operator Brett O'Brien, a Housatonic Community College graduate trained by the aerospace parts manufacturer in a federally funded program. Photo by Ann Harrison of Workforce Alliance.
partnership between Workforce Alliance and the Advanced Manufacturing Center at Housatonic Community College is advancing toward its goal of placing all of HCC’s manufacturing students at companies around the state with funding from a U.S. visa program for employers importing foreign workers to do specialized jobs. This past spring, 20 of 35 HCC manufacturing graduates were placed in full-time employment using an on-the-job training incentive program through Workforce Alliance — an improvement over 2015’s placement of 16 out of 35 grads. The program uses grants awarded by the U.S. Department of Labor and administered by
the New Haven-based Workforce Alliance, eliminating costs to job candidates and employers alike. “It’s headache-free for employers,” said Gene LaPorta. outreach coordinator at the Advanced Manufacturing Center at HCC. “It’s simple and straightforward, and quite a few manufacturers take advantage of the opportunity repeatedly.” One such manufacturer is McMellon Bros. Inc. in Stratford, which supplies “flight safety critical” threaded parts to the American aerospace industry. “We have a lot of employees with 30-plus years who are now retiring,” said Rory M. Miller, vice president and mechanical engineer at the company. “About five years ago we began looking for experienced employees, but it was difficult to find anybody.” » » JOBS, page 6
State bars new policies by health exchange co-op FEDERAL PAYMENT IS TIPPING POINT FOR FINANCIALLY AILING HEALTHYCT BY KEVIN ZIMMERMAN kzimmerman@westfairinc.com THOUSANDS OF CONNECTICUT RESIDENTS WILL need to find new health insurance coverage in the wake of the state’s suspension of HealthyCT from offering any
new policies. Created as a result of the Affordable Care Act, the nonprofit co-op health insurance company appears to be closing after the Connecticut Insurance Department (CID) prohibited it on July 5 from writing any new busi-
ness, citing its “hazardous financial standing.” “This is not an action that we take lightly,” said CID Commissioner Katherine Wade, “but did so in order to immediately protect the company’s 40,000 policyholders in Connecticut and make certain that their claims will be paid under the terms of their policies and for the duration of those policies.” “As regulators,” Wade continued, “consumer protection is our prime mission and an essential part of that is ensuring that carriers can honor their
promises to their policyholders. Unfortunately HealthyCT’s financial health is unstable, having been seriously jeopardized by a federal requirement issued June 30, 2016 that it pay $13.4 million to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services as part of the Affordable Care Act’s risk adjustment program.” “As a result,” she added, “it became evident that this risk adjustment mandate would put the company under significant financial strain. This order of supervision provides for an order-
ly run-off of the company’s claim payment under close regulatory oversight.” The development follows United Healthcare’s announcement in April that it plans to withdraw from almost all state health insurance exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act, including Connecticut’s Access Health CT (AHCT), by 2017. Anthem and ConnectiCare remain in AHCT. “We realize that this will cause some concern for customers who purchased a HealthyCT plan via » » HEALTH, page 6