The Connecticut state Senate voted 25 to 11 late Wednesday night to allow nurse practitioners to practice independent of physicians, a controversial concept that has gained traction amid growing concerns about the availability of primary care providers in the state.
Senate votes to allow nurse practitioners to practice independent of doctors
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Politics
CT Senate votes to ban sales of genetically engineered grass seed
The state Senate voted 25 to 11 Wednesday night for legislation that would ban grass seed that is genetically engineered to resist pesticides and herbicides, an issue that the Senate leader calls necessary to protect the environment. Opponents call the bill an overreaction to a product not yet on the market.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Malloy challenges Boehner, Part II
Washington – Gov. Dannel Malloy is tussling with House Speaker John Boehner again, this time over long-term unemployment benefits.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Op-ed: Buyers beware (of Common Core)
Let’s look the governor, the commissioner of education and the State Board of Education in the eye and say: No Sale.
Posted inHealth
CT scales back Medicaid repayment rules for some recipients
Connecticut officials are scaling back the circumstances in which the state can seek repayment from the estates of Medicaid recipients when they die. This addresses what some say is a barrier to getting Medicaid-eligible people to sign up for the program under Obamacare.
Posted inPolitics
GOP candidate Boughton quits Mayors Against Illegal Guns
Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton resigned Wednesday from Mayors Against Illegal Guns, an affiliation that has brought him grief from gun owners in the six-way race for the Republican nomination for governor.
Posted inEducation
Report: Many Connecticut charter schools ‘hyper-segregated’
State law requires education leaders to “reduce racial, ethnic and economic isolation” to advance the state’s interests, but an advocacy group reports that most of Connecticut’s charter schools are “hyper-segregated.”
Posted inHealth
Feds release massive Medicare doctor payment database
The federal government has released a massive trove of Medicare data, making available for the first time information about what payments individual doctors received for specific services covered by Medicare in 2012.
Posted inMoney, Politics
For Malloy, much rides on April 15
While procrastinators hope for big refunds and scramble to beat Tuesday’s tax-filing deadline, the person with the most riding on those returns is Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.
Posted inPolitics
A Connecticut Kennedy, with sights on a seat in Hartford
Branford – Ted Kennedy Jr. made his debut as a candidate for public office Tuesday, blessed and burdened by a name that makes instant allies and passionate enemies of perfect strangers. His uncles and father began earlier, sights set on Congress or beyond. Kennedy, 52, is running for the part-time Connecticut General Assembly.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Op-ed: Let Connecticut’s people be heard!
By adopting ‘Initiative, Referendum and Recall,’ Connecticut citizens would have some meaningful leverage over their elected officials.
Posted inEducation
They may have a college degree, but does that lead to a job?
Two legislative committees have approved a bill that would require the state’s public colleges and the departments of Labor and Education to implement a system to track information on student employment once they graduate from Connecticut public colleges and universities.
Posted inEducation
Charter network CEO: Common Core tests may reveal ‘middle-class crisis’
When students start taking Common Core exams, the results will “expose that we have a middle-class crisis in this country,” said the CEO of a charter school network at Monday’s annual Yale School of Management Education Leadership Conference.
Posted inHealth
CT hospitals follow aviation, nuclear power in targeting errors
It was a big deal at John Dempsey Hospital when a housekeeper stopped a doctor from entering a room where a procedure was taking place. The celebration that followed was part of a broader effort to improve patient safety, modeled after strategies used in aviation, nuclear power and other industries where even small mistakes can have dire consequences.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Op-ed: Malloy should identify savings from SEBAC agreement
I believe Malloy should be forced to issue a report indicating the original plan to save $1 billion and the final results by item.