A sea of people wearing orange, purple, and green union t-shirts stood behind House Majority Leader Chris Donovan, D-Meriden, Wednesday, and offered their support for a bill that lets municipalities, nonprofits, and small businesses join the state employees health insurance pool.
“When it comes to health care we shouldn’t have differences,” Donovan said. He said this bill, which passed through its third committee vote Wednesday, is about having a good health care plan that’s affordable.
The bill so far has 85 co-sponsors in the House and six co-sponsors in the Senate.
Anne Kellner of CSEA/SEIU said the simple message is “health care pooling works.” She said as a paraprofessional in Thompson every year the Board of Education proposes saving money by shifting more of the health care costs to the employees. She said pooling would hold down insurance costs for local school boards.
Thomas Ledoux, of AFSCME Council 4, said he doesn’t pretend to be a health care expert. But, as highway foreperson in the Town of Newington, he knows what it’s like to work hard and pay taxes. “Health care pooling sounds like a win-win to me,” Ledoux said.
Click the play arrow below to watch Fletcher Fischer’s video of the press conference.