Most insurance companies selling health plans in the state’s individual market will get to raise customers’ premiums in 2016, but not by as much as they proposed, and one major carrier will have to lower its rates, according to decisions released by the Connecticut Insurance Department Saturday.
Regulator lowers most proposed health insurance rate hikes
Posted inPolitics
Himes: Ukraine wants U.S. to provide ‘defensive’ weapons
WASHINGTON – Rep. Jim Himes, D-4th District, said Ukrainian officials told him and other members of a visiting congressional delegation that the country could use more help from the United States — in the form of “defensive” weapons — to help defeat Russian-backed rebels.
Posted inEducation
How did your school do on the new SBAC test?
See how your school and school district performed on the new English and math assessment tests aligned with Common Core state standards.
Posted inEducation
How many students skipped the test?
Statewide, 4 percent of the nearly 300,000 public school students eligible to take the state’s standardized exams did not. However, in several schools throughout the state, those rates were much higher. See our charts for more detail.
Posted inEducation
New test, same large achievement gaps
Huge gaps in achievement between minority students and their peers remain, state education officials said Friday as they released results of the new, more difficut SBAC standardized test.
Posted inEducation
Scores plunge as students take new, tougher SBAC test
As expected, the standardized test scores parents are accustomed to seeing for their child’s school have plunged as the state implements a harder test aligned with the controversial Common Core State Standards.
Posted inMoney, Politics
GE becomes state Capitol’s latest political football
Two members of the Senate’s Republican minority called Friday for a special session to entice GE to stay by repealing a controversial new corporation tax provision.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Should the CSCU Board of Regents exist?
State Rep. Gail Lavielle, R-Wilton, is asking some very good questions about the role and responsibilities of the Board of Regents for the CSCU System. In a report on WSHU and an article in the Hartford Courant of Aug. 18, she asks if the board is “adding value, providing leadership, accountability, and fiscal responsibility” and even […]
Posted inPolitics
Trump takes on key CT industry — hedge funds
WASHINGTON – GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump has a new target for his ire — other super-rich guys, the nation’s hedge fund managers. “I know a lot of bad people in this country that are making a hell of a lot of money and not paying taxes,. The tax law is totally screwed up.” he said.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Connecticut should give ex-cons a better break
Many ex-convicts who get out of prison end up in Hartford on our streets. According to a Pew Center on the States study, almost half of ex-cons soon end up back in jail for committing crime because it is sometimes their only way to pay their bills. I work as a chaplain at a prison in Connecticut and many convicts, including military veterans, approach and complain to me that they have no future outside of those walls since a lot of them went to prison while they were young, didn’t have education, and worst of all, have a criminal record that will follow them around. I believe that a person who committed a non-violent crime and served a punishment for it should be given a second chance.
Posted inPolitics
Former GOP chief Gallo gets prison in kickback case
Connecticut’s former Republican state chairman, George Gallo, was sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court in Hartford to a year and a day in prison for taking kickbacks on campaign mailings he arranged as chief of staff to the state legislature’s House GOP caucus.
Posted inEducation
For the interim, Ojakian can just say he’s ‘president’
“Notwithstanding the interim nature of this appointment, the President shall not be required to reference ‘interim’ in connection with his title as President of the CT Board of Regents,” Ojakian’s four-page contract reads.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
There should be no debate here: GMOs are bad
I just want to register my disappointment that the Mirror [and CTViewpoints] would actually give a platform to Paul Pescatello concerning GMO foods. My disappointment stems from the fact that this issue is not an actual debate with two opposing sides as Mr. Pescatello would like to have us think.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Is Gov. Malloy fit to govern?
So Gov. Dannel “Giveaway” Malloy is offering “incentives” to keep General Electric’s 800 corporate employees here. How nice. This is an affront to all the other businesses in the state that have to keep paying high taxes and get no relief at all from the state. And to top it off, the taxes that all the other companies do pay will be used to provide the incentives to keep GE in the state! I’m sure they will be really happy about that.
Posted inPolitics
Ganim’s comeback pitch: ‘It’s not about my past’
BRIDGEPORT – It’s the question of Connecticut’s primary season: Can Joseph P. Ganim, a dozen years after his mayoralty here was unmasked as a racketeering conspiracy to shake down city contractors, regain the office he so memorably disgraced?