Sens. Kelly & Hwang on CT health care cost growth report: “People want solutions.”

For Immediate Release:

Senate Republican Leader Kevin Kelly (R-Stratford) and Sen. Tony Hwang (R-Fairfield), the ranking senator on the Insurance and Real Estate Committee, issued the following statement in response to the state’s first-ever healthcare cost growth benchmark report which underscores the need to enact legislative reforms that will make healthcare more affordable for Connecticut residents and employers.

“Taking a page out of then-Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker’s playbook, our Senate Republican caucus proposed benchmarking in our first reinsurance bill and we supported the Governor’s executive order in 2020. We worked in bipartisan fashion to further explore the benefits of healthcare cost growth benchmarking policies that have yielded positive results for Massachusetts.

This is not a politically partisan issue. Everyone hears from their constituents about the cost of healthcare. People want solutions. Healthcare affordability needs to be tackled with a multipronged approach that includes controlling the growth of expenses. Our current proposal – which we unveiled in our A Better Way to Affordable Health Care plan, includes benchmarking for hospital and pharmaceutical costs, which are the two cost drivers in healthcare.

Family budgets are breaking and people are living paycheck to paycheck as they have difficulty making hard choices on things like health insurance.  Our plan achieves these affordability goals through transparency, through competition, and by enabling the marketplace to work better for the consumer and our small businesses.

The promises of the Affordable Care Act – to create affordable and accessible quality care for all people – have not been delivered for far too many Connecticut residents. It’s past time to give families and businesses the healthcare they were promised.  Senate Republicans will continue to offer thoughtful and impactful solutions to provide financial relief.  Fighting to create a more affordable Connecticut is a vision we can achieve together. It’s the better way.”