Lamont Proposes $1,000 Charge On Large Corporations For Every Employee On Medicaid

by Donald Eng

ROCKY HILL, CT — Large companies and nonprofit organizations could find themselves paying hundreds of thousands of dollars or more to the state under a healthcare policy Gov. Ned Lamont’s campaign unveiled Thursday. 

Under the proposal, dubbed the Fairshare Healthcare initiative, corporations with more than 100 employees and nonprofit agencies with more than 1,000 employees would be assessed an amount up to $1,000 for each employee that relies on Medicaid for their healthcare coverage.

“For too long, a handful of massive corporations have padded their profits by paying low wages and offering little to no benefits, forcing their workers onto state public assistance where taxpayers pick up the tab,” Lamont said. “That’s not just unfair to Connecticut families; it’s unfair to the thousands of responsible local businesses that do the right thing and invest in their workforces.”

The location chosen for the announcement, Town Line Plaza in Rocky Hill, was no accident. With a podium set up at the bottom of a rough triangle formed by the complex’s Walmart and Stop & Shop stores, state Sen. John Fonfara, D-Hartford, pointed out the difference between the two companies. Stop & Shop, whose workers are unionized, provides employee benefits, while Walmart does not.

“If Stop & Shop can do it, Walmart can do it,” he said. He added that the ability of larger companies to deploy an army of workers meant that individual workers have virtually no leverage when it comes to securing better benefits.

Walmart, in a corporate statement, defended its practices and said the proposal amounted to punishing employers.

The company said it offers affordable healthcare plans to eligible full-time employees and part-time employees who average more than 30 hours per week. The majority of workers are eligible for coverage, though the company did not disclose how many were actually enrolled.

“Penalizing employers for hiring Connecticut residents is bad health care policy and even worse economic policy,” according to the statement.

Republican House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora of North Branford said Lamont was using Walmart as a scapegoat.

“Democrats always need a faceless corporate villain,” he said.

The proposal, he said, does nothing to address the reasons why so many residents need state assistance in the first place, he said.

“Our cost of living … is too high and Democrats haven’t just failed to fix that, in many cases they’ve made it worse,” he said.

State Rep. Josh Elliott of Hamden, Lamont’s opponent in the Democratic primary in August, pointed out that he had proposed very similar legislation nine years ago. And other legislators had floated the idea years before that.

“Now that he has a legitimate challenger, he’s adopting some progressive positions,” Elliott said. “But I’m glad to see him taking up my positions, and I’d like to see him start talking about some more of them.”

But should Lamont win re-election, Elliott predicted the proposals he was talking about now would quietly go away.

Lamont himself acknowledged the earlier efforts at what he called corporate accountability.

“But nothing happened,” he said. “I’m here, and something’s happening.”