A proposal to allow minors with certain medical conditions to use marijuana for palliative purposes is back before legislators this year, this time with the backing of onetime opponents: pediatricians.
Arielle Levin Becker
Arielle Levin Becker covered health care for The Connecticut Mirror. She previously worked for The Hartford Courant, most recently as its health reporter, and has also covered small towns, courts and education in Connecticut and New Jersey. She was a finalist in 2009 for the prestigious Livingston Award for Young Journalists, a recipient of a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship and the third-place winner in 2013 for an in-depth piece on caregivers from the National Association of Health Journalists. She is a 2004 graduate of Yale University.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Malloy warns of workforce cuts, affirms opposition to tax hikes
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration confirmed Friday the downward trend in state revenues — though not the precise numbers — that nonpartisan analysts reported earlier this week. While the governor never used the word “layoff,” he told reporters Friday that state government’s workforce must shrink considerably soon, and that the next state budget still must be balanced without tax hikes.
Posted inHealth, Politics
Malloy orders review of health care oversight, delaying Yale-L+M decision
Updated 8:30 p.m.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has ordered the state Department of Public Health to postpone until next year any final decisions on certain hospital transactions – or reject them if state law requires a quicker decision – while a newly created task force examines the state’s oversight process for transactions and other major changes involving hospitals.
Posted inHealth
Charlotte Hungerford, Hartford HealthCare to explore affiliation
Charlotte Hungerford Hospital in Torrington has become the latest independent hospital to begin the process of joining a larger health system – in this case, Hartford HealthCare, the parent company of five Connecticut hospitals.
Posted inHealth, Politics
Change to hospital regulation again looms – but direction unclear
As hospitals join larger systems and critics worry about access to care, a key legislator said the time is ripe for lawmakers to revisit the way the state regulates major changes in health care. But it’s not yet clear what shape such changes will take – or whether they would leave the state with more regulation or less, a sign of sharply differing views on its role.
Posted inHealth
About 8,000 CT exchange customers didn’t pay first bill
About 8,000 people who signed up for coverage through Connecticut’s health insurance exchange missed the deadline for their first payment and lost coverage, exchange CEO Jim Wadleigh said Monday.
Posted inEducation, Money
Clues to where Malloy’s commissioners might cut, if given the authority
Asked by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to give state agency leaders the authority to cut $360.8 million, state legislators are struggling to get a sense of which programs and services gubernatorial appointees would deem “pet projects” and target for reductions or elimination. “What I am trying to figure out when someone from a domestic violence shelter […]
Posted inHealth, Politics
Malloy seeks to cut legislative authority over Medicaid changes
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration is seeking to eliminate legislators’ authority over certain attempts to make changes to Medicaid and other federally funded assistance programs – an authority legislators recently used to block a controversial administration proposal.
Posted inHealth
Wait-listed: Budget woes blamed for delays serving people with brain injuries
Twenty-five people are on the waiting list for services under a state-run program for people with acquired brain injuries that has 13 open slots, and advocates say the state is violating the terms of the program by not filling them. State officials dispute that, and say they lack the funding and staff to fill the program.
Posted inHealth
State says UnitedHealthcare can’t ax broker commissions
The Connecticut Insurance Department has blocked UnitedHealthcare’s plan to stop paying broker commissions for plans sold through the state’s health insurance exchange, but will let them pay a lower rate.
Posted inHealth
Pino named to lead public health, just in time for Zika
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy named Dr. Raul Pino to lead the state Department of Public Health on Thursday, then immediately featured him at a briefing on the mosquito-borne Zika virus. Pino says there is no public health crisis, but the department is arranging testing of suspected cases contracted by travelers to warm-weather countries where the disease is present.
Posted inMoney
Labor, advocacy groups call for tax hikes instead of budget cuts
A top Connecticut labor leader blasted Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s proposed budget as continuing “to protect the very, very wealthy,” offering a counterpoint to the governor’s call for deep spending cuts and state workforce reductions, and to the broader aversion among many legislators to the idea of raising taxes for a second consecutive year.
Posted inHealth
Expert: Transparency, savvy patients, competition key in tackling health care prices
Zack Cooper recently co-authored a high-profile paper linking higher hospital prices to market power. He advocates for strong antitrust enforcement when it comes to health care consolidation. But when his father was very sick, Cooper told state policymakers, he wanted him to go to a large medical center that treated a high volume of patients with the same condition. “There’s this tension,” he said.
Posted inHealth
116,019 CT residents signed up for Obamacare plans
Updated at 6:50 p.m.
In all, 116,019 Connecticut residents signed up for private insurance through the state’s health insurance exchange, Access Health CT, during the open enrollment period that ended last week, officials said Monday.
Posted inHealth
Trying for a breath of fresh air in treating asthma
Asthma affects Connecticut residents at higher rates than the nation’s population as a whole, and it’s on the rise. Several local efforts are trying to make headway in changing the course of the disease, using approaches some say could serve as a model for addressing other chronic illnesses that are more heavily influenced by what happens in a patient’s daily life than treatment in the medical system.