A bill that would make Connecticut’s generous state-employee health coverage available to political appointees on quasi-public authority boards arrived on the Senate floor Thursday afternoon with scant details about who sought the measure, who authored it or who might be an intended beneficiary.  

Sen. Jorge Cabrera, D-Hamden, co-chair of the Insurance and Real Estate Committee, where the legislation originated as a committee bill with no individual  sponsor, told senators it was designed to “incentivize individuals to serve on our boards.”

No one asked if there is a dearth of individuals willing to accept a seat on one of the 16 quasi-public authorities that oversee, among other things, the Connecticut Lottery, Bradley International Airport and, yes, the insurance exchange whose mission is to help people find affordable health coverage.

The bill is similar to a provision slipped into a 235-page budget bill last year by a person or persons unknown, at least to the public, and then removed by leaders amid press inquiries. Such items, which often are drawn with a specific constituent or constituency in mind, are colorfully known at the Capitol as “rats.”

The rat was resurrected with a greater measure of transparency in Senate Bill 1384, a 13-line piece of legislation clearly labeled: “An Act Allowing Board Members of Quasi-Public Agencies to Obtain Health Insurance Coverage Under the State Employee Plan.”

But the exercise of going through the full legislative process — vetting by a committee and a public hearing — yielded no answer to basic questions about the bill’s origin and necessity: Where did it come from? Who sought it?

The Senate passed the bill on a 20-14 vote, with three Democrats joining all 11 Republicans in opposition. Two of the three Democratic dissenters, Sen. Matt Lesser of Middletown and Sen. Martha Marx of New London, also had voted against it in committee.

Neither spoke during the debate in the Senate or in committee, but Marx said in an interview Friday, “No one could tell me the reason why we were doing that bill.”

Last year’s version only covered four quasi-public authorities, among them the Connecticut Airport Authority, whose board members include Vincent Mauro Jr., the New Haven Democratic chair and former chief of staff to Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven.

Mauro, now a government affairs advisor employed by McCarter & English, a New Jersey law firm with a law and lobbying presence in Connecticut, New York, and Washington D.C., said he was unaware of Senate Bill 1384 and had no role in its passage.

“I have good health insurance,” he said.

At the Capitol, there is no way to trace the DNA of legislation, aside from the record produced by legislative sponsors, advocates and opponents, public hearing testimony and debates in committee and on the floor. SB 1384 generated none of that. 

It was one of a dozen bills on a public hearing agenda of the insurance committee in March, but a review of the transcript shows no mention of the bill, pro or con. There was no written testimony offering praise, criticism or analysis from the quasi-publics, which would bear most of the cost of health care premiums.

Behind the scenes, the bill apparently generated no discussion among the lawmakers who screen bills before they come for a vote in committee, as SB 1384 did on March 13, the last day the Insurance and Real Estate Committee sent bills to the floor.

As is the case with all committee meetings, a video record is available on CT-N.

“I don’t remember going over this bill in screening or talking about it,” Rep. Cara Pavalock-D’Amato, R-Bristol, told fellow committee members in March. She did remember the same idea surfaced a year or two ago, “I think, as a rat.”

Cabrera ignored the rat reference and briefly explained the bill as providing board members access to the state employee plan for the duration of their service, requiring them to pay the same share of the premium as employees, which averages 15%.

“Who put in this bill?” Pavalock-D’Amato asked. “Does anybody know where this bill originated from?”

Cabrera noted there were 16 quasi-publics listed at the bottom of the bill.

She said she understood that. 

“But where is this bill coming from?” she asked. “Is there anybody specific, or any group, that has pushed this bill?”

“So, it was a bill that I originally spearheaded,” Cabrera said, adding he had been “talking to several legislators.”

That was the extent of the origin story of SB 1384.

Rep. Kerry Wood, D-Rocky Hill, the House co-chair of the committee, told Cabrera at the meeting she was willing to move the bill out of committee to the Senate floor but offered no assurance of voting for passage if it reached the House.

“I am going to reluctantly support this bill to get it moving forward,” Wood said then. “But I have said this over and over again, that I would like to see us stop putting bills forward to add anyone that needs health insurance to the state employee plan.”

She reiterated her reluctance to support the bill Thursday after the Senate voted and Cabrera briefly met with Wood outside the House chamber. Wood said she was unsure the bill would get called for a floor vote in the House — or what she would do if it did.

Tom Swan, the executive director of the Connecticut Citizen Action Group, typically applauds anything that expands availability to health care. Not so this time, even though he could be a potential beneficiary. He sits on the board of a quasi-public, the State Education Resource Center.

“We support opening up the state employee health plan for everybody, not just political insiders,” Swan said of CCAG. He laughed and added, “As a board member of a quasi-public, I’ll decline the opportunity to enroll if presented.”