Emergency department visits in the state increased by nearly 10 percent between the 2006 and 2009 fiscal years, and a large portion of the visits weren’t emergencies, according to a report by the state Office of Health Care Access. The report examined the approximately 85 percent of emergency department visits that do not result in […]

WASHINGTON–The bare-bones spending bill now moving through Congress will do little to help states like Connecticut close their gaping budget holes. That measure, which passed the House last week, freezes discretionary federal spending at 2010 levels through the end of fiscal year 2011. And it’s $46 billion less than President Barack Obama had been seeking […]

Senators who are still on the fence about the $900 billion tax cut package, brokered last week by the White House and Senate Republicans, will get a little extra time to make up their minds today. At 3 p.m. today, the Senate started what would normally be a 15-minute vote on the measure. But leaders […]

With a sharp tweak at her predecessor, Gov. M. Jodi Rell today delivered a farewell holiday message to the Middlesex Chamber of Commerce, an annual opportunity to offer tongue-in-cheek holiday wishes and zingers to friends and rivals. Gov. M. Jodi Rell at the Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce: ‘A bittersweet moment’ It was at the […]

Republicans have settled on Bob Ward, the DMV commissioner and former House minority leader, as the next Republican state auditor, political sources say. He would succeed Robert Jaekle, a former House GOP leader. On the Democratic side, speculation is focused on Rep. John Geragosian of New Britain, but it was unclear Monday if a decision […]

Gov.-elect Dan Malloy is no fan of a federal judge’s ruling that says the mandate for individuals to carry health insurance is unconstitutional. “I disagree with, and am disappointed by, the ruling of a Virginia federal judge deeming the individual coverage portion of the national healthcare law to be unconstitutional. But this decision underscores the […]

For a decade after the egg industry agreed to be subject to federal regulation and inspection, the government failed to implement and enforce rules–in part because of Bush Administration antipathy to government oversight of business and in part because of rivalries and dysfunction at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, […]

Even in the checkout lane at the supermarket, Richard C. Cole can’t ignore his mission to change a mindset that causes too many young people to give up on math and science. When a teenage clerk mistakenly overcharged him recently and told him she would call the store manager to figure out how much he […]

The state’s pension fund now holds less than 45 percent of the funds its needs to meet obligations to workers, plunging below the halfway mark for the first time in more than two decades, according to the latest, biennial report from fund analysts. The actuarial valuation prepared by Cavanaugh Macdonald Consulting of Kennesaw, Ga., also […]

At Gov. M.Jodi Rell’s last scheduled meeting of the Bond Commission today, she played a role in sending out plenty of goodies before the holidays, including $250,000 to renovate a playground in her hometown of Brookfield. “I was actually one of the original parents that helped to build that playground,” Rell said. “So it is […]

Attorney General-elect George Jepsen today named a high-profile federal prosecutor as his deputy: Nora R. Dannehy, who successfully prosecuted Gov. John G. Rowland on corruption charges. Dannehy, 49, now the chief of the financial and fraud and public corruption unit in the U.S. attorney’s office in Connecticut, is a career prosecutor who was the top […]

On its face, it seems like a straightforward proposition: Yale University announced last month that it will offer college scholarships to New Haven public school students who meet attendance and performance requirements. But the New Haven Promise, as is called, is being looked to as a solution to many of the city’s problems. “Our first […]

The heads of the three insurance companies in the HUSKY program said Friday that they are not attempting to lower the rates they pay doctors and hospitals below previously allowed levels, even though their contracts with the state now permit it. But that did not appear to reassure members of the council that oversees HUSKY, […]

If there’s one Democrat in Connecticut who has reason to be thrilled with the tax compromise President Obama struck this week with congressional Republicans, it should be Gov.-elect Dan Malloy. Malloy, who will be asking state legislators to February to adopt a tax increase that could be the largest in two decades, might otherwise be […]

In increasingly blunt talk about the state’s fiscal crisis, Governor-elect Dan Malloy says his Republican predecessor, M. Jodi Rell, and the Democrat-controlled legislature clung to futile hopes for a quick economic recovery instead of making long-needed structural changes to Connecticut’s operations and finances. “They should’ve been done earlier. They should have been done by the […]