Sen. Fasano Responds to Gov. Malloy Comments on Medicaid Cuts

Hartford – Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano (R-North Haven) released the following statement in response to comments made by Governor Dannel P.Malloy today defending recent budget cuts to Medicaid.

“The governor still doesn’t get it. This is about patients. This is about people struggling to access health care. This is about the fact that the governor raised taxes on hospitals by over $422 million in a single year, resulting in an effective tax rate of 94% that will wipe out any capital that is needed to keep hospitals updated with the technology, the services and care people deserve. It’s not about businesses making money, it’s about hospitals having to lay off employees, cut services and possibly close doors and the horrible impact this will have on our communities. To say layoffs are ‘a fact of life’ is unconscionable. Tell that to the families who rely on income from a job at a hospital. Tell them they are out of luck because the governor needs a way to balance his failed budget. The governor can continue to use misleading numbers to paint hospitals as ‘bad’ in order to protect his own failed budget decisions, but in doing so he is putting health care at risk for every man, woman and child in the state of Connecticut. For this governor to slash funding for health care services to the poor and underfund Medicaid by more than any other state in the country just shows the level of hypocrisy and lack of principled policy of this administration.”