Republicans Say Their Healthcare Costs Are ‘Untenable,’ Demanding It Be Suspended Following Lamont’s Budget Cuts
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, along with the mayors of Stamford, Norwalk, New Haven, and Hartford, joined immigrant rights advocates at the state Capitol this week to demand that the state protect its undocumented residents against President-elect Donald Trump’s mass deportation threats.
The rally was held amid calls to strengthen Connecticut’s Trust Act, which prohibits the apprehension of any individual based solely on an immigration-related detention order.
The rally also followed Republican legislative leaders’ demand last week that the state suspend healthcare for undocumented residents in response to recent budget cuts by Gov. Ned Lamont’s office, citing nearly $400 million in projected cost overruns in the current fiscal year’s budget, with over half of that sum attributed to Medicaid.
“Connecticut faces a $200 million Medicaid crisis that threatens to drain resources from core government services and programs,” House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, and Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield, wrote in a joint statement. “A major contributor is taxpayer-funded healthcare for undocumented immigrants. Last fiscal year, this program blew past projections by nearly $10 million and is already on track to exceed this year’s budget by over $20 million.”
“This Medicaid program for undocumenteds is a Cadillac plan. Most residents in Connecticut don’t receive the level of benefits that undocumenteds receive under the state plan,” Candelora said. “There are certainly the base levels of healthcare that you could supply for undocumenteds. I just don’t believe you should be giving them the Cadillac plan at the expense of our residents.”
However, Lamont’s office blamed the projected shortfall on the General Assembly’s failure to consider his request for adequate Medicaid funding last February.
“Gov. Lamont proposed midterm budget adjustments for FY 2025, however the legislature chose not to pass legislation adjusting the FY 2025 budget during the recently adjourned session. That budget adjustment proposal accounted for approximately $105 million of the Medicaid deficiency,” Lamont’s press secretary, David Bednarz, said in a written statement.
Medicaid spending has seen a rapid increase in recent years because of high demand and rising inflation, but advocates argued that even if the state was to ax its HUSKY insurance program for undocumented children, the savings would be spent on partial reimbursements for uncompensated care and other knock-on expenses.
“Ensuring kids have access to healthcare is not only vital for their own wellbeing and development but also a key tool for keeping our communities safe. The pandemic showed us the importance of incentivizing people to stay healthy and of the importance of healthcare coverage in controlling the spread of infectious diseases, particularly for vulnerable populations,” Bednarz said. “From a fiscal perspective, uninsured kids often end up in the emergency room for primary care, which drives up costs for everyone — commercial insurance and government programs.”
On Tuesday, Husky 4 Immigrants Coalition Manager Luis Luna released a statement saying Republican leaders had failed to uphold their vow to represent Connecticut residents. The statement also cites an Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy report that estimated undocumented immigrants in Connecticut had contributed over $400 million in state and local taxes in 2022.
“It appears that Republican leaders forget, or do not care, that the people who are benefiting from this healthcare program are residents of the state they vowed to represent. They also fail to realize that many are taxpayers who support families, pay their rent, and build strong communities within our state,” Luna said.
In addition to asking state agencies to reduce spending in order “to ensure that overall spending this year and on an annualized basis does not exceed that which is allowable under Connecticut’s constitutional spending cap [equivalent to the greater of the growth in personal income or increase in inflation],” Office of Policy and Management Secretary Jeffrey Beckham also notified the Appropriations Committee on Nov. 13 that the administration would be reallocating over $22 million in American Rescue Plan (ARPA) funds to the higher education system – around $18 million short of the amount lawmakers had originally promised.
House Republicans slammed the decision.
“Instead of addressing the real needs of our constituents, this money [the remaining ARPA funds] will prop up a bureaucracy that supplies the state colleges and universities system chancellor with an outrageously lavish, taxpayer-funded lifestyle replete with housing and vehicle perks and the freedom to indulge in chauffeur service and expensive meals the average taxpayer could never afford,” Candelora and Rep. Tammy Nuccio, R-Tolland, wrote in a separate joint statement related to the ARPA funds. “We could have put these funds to better use. We could have helped municipalities – and local property taxpayers – manage the rising costs of special education or even provided a measure of relief to electric ratepayers.”
But, with over $4 billion in the state’s rainy day fund and a $853.6 million surplus in FY 2024, the budget cuts still make little sense to some on Lamont’s own side of the political spectrum.
“The administration announced that we will receive just $22.1 million instead of $40 million in remaining ARPA funds and Gov. Lamont is going back on his word to spare higher education from efficiency cuts. This is in addition to the hundreds of millions that our institutions have already suffered in cuts along with huge tuition and fee increases,” higher education labor leaders said in a joint statement.
The recent decisions have also called into question Connecticut’s fiscal guardrails, which were enacted in 2017. The guardrails include a volatility cap, which limits the amount of income and business tax revenues that can be used to balance the budget before the fiscal year’s end. Designed to build up the state’s reserves and pay off the state’s massive unfunded pension debt, the guardrails have been described as an “aggressive savings program” that has contributed to the repletion of available funding for healthcare, education, and other essential services.
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