Last week, senators intent on boosting transparency around long-term care insurance price hikes passed a bill that requires insurers to hold public hearings whenever they raise rates by more than 10%.

The measure, introduced as a strike-all amendment on the Senate floor Wednesday — a rewrite of another bill that also includes incentives for high performing nursing homes — cleared the chamber with unanimous support.

“Consumers need to be aware of increases over 10% and really have the ability to tell their stories, to tell the companies directly how this will affect them,” said Sen. Jan Hochadel, D-Meriden, co-chair of the Aging Committee. “Companies should also want the opportunity to explain why the rate increases are necessary. It’s making them accountable, but also transparent.”

In follow-up speeches, a Republican lawmaker and the Senate’s majority leader both expressed enthusiastic support for the proposal.

But within 24 hours, the bill appeared dead on arrival in the House.

A contingent of Republican legislators and at least one moderate Democrat planned to filibuster, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. The move apparently came after representatives for the insurance sector registered their dissent.

A lobbyist for companies selling long-term care insurance policies confirmed he reached out to House lawmakers expressing opposition to the bill.

“We don’t hold public hearings; governmental entities hold public hearings,” said Eric George, president of the Insurance Association of Connecticut, which lobbies on behalf of the carriers. “We would have concerns with any requirement that we — private insurance companies — hold public hearings.”

Lawmakers in the House who had planned to take up the bill early this week said they were frustrated with the turn of events.

“There was nothing specific on how the companies needed to do this. They could do a regional meeting. They could partner with area agencies on aging and do five public hearings a year; at each one share what’s coming up,” said Rep. Jane Garibay, D-Windsor, co-chair of the Aging Committee. “We left it wide open.”

Hochadel, a key backer of the measure in the Senate, said she was blindsided by the pushback in the House.

“I’m shocked that they waited until it got out of the Senate to say, ‘Oh no, I have some issues with it,’” she said. “We wanted to try and give something back to the policyholders, because the rates keep increasing, and some of these people are dropping their plans after paying for years and years.

“We’re having a difficult budget year, so I understand that giving a tax credit or an exemption – things like that – are difficult,” she said, referring to other policies proposed this session. “That’s why I wanted to get some small portion adopted.”

Hochadel said the public hearing requirement would enhance transparency in the rate setting process without costing a lot of money. Proposals to offer policyholders a tax credit or tax deduction would have cost tens of millions of dollars.

“It seems like a very easy ask,” she said. “If you’re going to raise a policy by more than 10%, all you have to do is hold a public forum. … I am assuming some folks on the other side of the aisle are looking to help the insurance companies.

“These folks need some help, some relief,” she said of the policyholders. “It just boggles my mind.”

Earlier this year, lobbyists for the insurance companies testified against a volley of legislation that would help consumers with long-term care coverage, from capping annual rate increases to issuing consumer notifications with warnings about price hikes.

They opposed public hearing requirements in several bills this year and in previous years.

“I don’t think it’s in the consumers’ best interest to extend the period of time it takes to get products to the market,” George told The Connecticut Mirror when asked previously about resistance to public hearings.

“You would be adding to the bureaucracy of how this process goes. You already have the department approving the rates. I don’t see how the benefit would balance out the delay.”

House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, said he was unaware of the filibuster threat.

“Generally speaking, public hearings are fine to have,” Candelora said. “The problem we’ve seen with long-term care insurance rates is, the way they’re actuarially done, they’ve continued to increase and outpace people’s ability to pay. And it’s just something the legislature and the state have never been able to get their arms around.

“I think it’s a critical issue that we do need to tackle.”

Rep. Matt Blumenthal, D-Stamford, who himself introduced legislation this year to help LTCI policyholders, questioned the opposition to public hearings.

“There are a lot of vested interests [and people] who don’t want things to change. It’s a complex industry and a powerful industry,” he said. “I don’t understand why you’d be opposed to a public hearing if you’re willing to stand behind your rate increase requests and think they’re justified.”

Nearly 100,000 people in Connecticut have long-term care insurance — coverage that, depending on the policy, supports skilled in-home care, rehabilitation therapy, assisted living, nursing home stays and respite care.

A CT Mirror investigation found the annual cost of maintaining these policies has skyrocketed for many residents due to miscalculations by insurers on how long people would live, the price of care and how many would need it. Consumers face sizable rate increases, often exceeding 50% and, for a few dozen people, as high as 174%, according to a CT Mirror analysis.

A review of rate hikes from January 2019 to October 2024 shows more than 17,000 people with long-term care policies have gotten hit with increases of 50% or more. Some of the biggest companies in the market, including Genworth Financial, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and Transamerica Life Insurance Company, requested hikes for five years in a row beginning in 2019.

When providers seek premium increases, thousands of consumers can be affected. In 2019, for example, Genworth Financial requested a 40% rate hike on more than 9,000 Connecticut policyholders. In 2021, Transamerica requested a 20% rate increase on 8,000 policies. The Insurance Department approved both requests with no changes.

In 2022, Genworth raised rates for more than 2,000 people by an average of 97%, with increases ranging from 79% to 173%, depending on the policy. The approved amounts were a slight reduction from the company’s original request.

As consumers are squeezed, grievances filed with the Connecticut Insurance Department have mounted. The office received more than 700 complaints in the last six years about long-term care insurance, mostly rising premiums.

Solutions have been elusive. Legislators introduced more than 50 bills from 2019 to 2024, with only a small number passing and offering limited relief. They blamed budget constraints and pushback from insurers, among other problems.

Legislative efforts impacted by costs and fierce opposition

Five wide ranging bills were advanced by legislative committees this session, with lawmakers pledging urgent reform.

But substantial costs associated with some solutions and sharp opposition to others slowed progress.

Measures that would give policyholders a financial break in the form of a tax credit or tax deduction hit a wall due to sizable costs. Estimates by the state’s Office of Fiscal Analysis put the price of one tax credit at $67.2 million and a tax deduction at $20.2 million.

Despite Connecticut being on pace to close this fiscal year with the second-largest surplus in state history — a nearly $2.4 billion windfall according to Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration — officials were wary of providing tax relief in the state budget.

Given ongoing congressional efforts to make unprecedented cuts in Medicaid, lawmakers fear Connecticut stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

Legislators also proposed 10% caps on annual rate increases, public hearings, consumer notifications warning of the risk of large premium increases, and a sweeping audit of the state’s regulation of long-term care insurance. Other measures would have tied annual rate hikes to the consumer price index, required insurers to certify that premium increases are necessary to prevent a material risk of insolvency, and barred carriers from entering into state contracts if they don’t comply with LTCI policy changes.

Many consumers and legislators testified in support of the bills, while insurers opposed them.

“If a reduction in these outrageous premiums is not legislated, policyholders will be forced to drop these policies,” Jan Kritzman, who herself has endured large rate increases, told lawmakers in February. “If they end up in a nursing home, then here comes Title 19 Medicaid. Thank you, taxpayers of the state of Connecticut.

“My husband and I have long-term health insurance policies from Transamerica. We have endured a 350% increase in our premium since 2004. This May, our annual premium combined will be more than $6,000 … this is after I pared down the policy benefits in 2021.”

“Residents, mostly seniors … are being forced to choose between buying food, paying their rent or mortgage or paying for their long-term care insurance,” Newington resident David Schwartzer said. “Solving this problem is not easy. It takes courage to write new laws that will serve the citizens of Connecticut and not the insurance industry.”

Representatives for the insurance companies warned the proposals would have “serious consequences” and undermine the financial stability of long-term care insurance policies.

“Actuarially sound rates are essential to achieving this goal, and deviating from this principle may lead to inadequate premiums, jeopardizing insurer stability and consumer protection,” George wrote in joint testimony with officials from America’s Health Insurance Plans and the American Council of Life Insurers.

Rep. Lucy Dathan, co-chair of the Government Oversight Committee, which passed a bill on the issue in March, said it was an especially tight budget year. For the last four years, Connecticut has used billions in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds to prop up an array of state initiatives. But nearly all of that money has been exhausted.

Dathan and her colleagues had proposed, among other things, an audit of the state’s long-term care partnership plan, a review of Connecticut’s policies for regulating this coverage, and an evaluation of an alternative insurance pool for policyholders. The reviews would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“I was told there was a lot of stuff that wasn’t advanced because it needed an external group to come in and do the review or study, and we didn’t have room in the budget,” she said. “There was a pretty ruthless budget focus this year and making sure we were under the spending cap, trying not to let anything new in.”

Lawmakers said they would continue to look at ways to offer relief to policyholders.

“This is an issue that requires a lot of sophistication in the industry, and I’m hopeful we’ll be able to work with the insurance department in the off session to do something substantive to help people,” Blumenthal said.