Like a ship adrift at sea, our state is rudderless. Leadership seems bent on serving every interest except the public’s, and the inevitable outcome has been a nonexistent economic recovery and increasing financial insecurity for people all across the state.
It’s time to face the facts and fix the problems
Posted inNews
It’s time to face the facts and fix the problems
Like a ship adrift at sea, our state is rudderless. Leadership seems bent on serving every interest except the public’s, and the inevitable outcome has been a nonexistent economic recovery and increasing financial insecurity for people all across the state.
Posted inPolitics
Foley courts gun owners without promising Sandy Hook repeal
Middletown — Republican gubernatorial contender Tom Foley told the state’s largest gun group Tuesday night that he would block further gun-control legislation if elected, but he has no plans to seek repeal of the sweeping changes to the state’s gun laws approved last year in the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Posted inMoney, Politics
CT Democrats vow to grow more jobs in 2014
With Connecticut’s unemployment rate continuing to lag the nation’s, majority Democrats tried to assure voters Tuesday that job development is their top priority. Leaders from the House and Senate unveiled a jobs and business agenda that includes additional financing for job subsidies, new school-to-job programs, expansion of state ports and business opportunities near college campuses and new protections for businesses facing baseless patent lawsuits.
Posted inHealth
Connecticut regulators losing patience with Anthem coverage delays
David Gilbert says he sent his $825 check to Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in early December. It was supposed to ensure that the Voluntown man would have health insurance by the start of this year. But two weeks into 2014, Gilbert, 63, is still waiting for proof that he has insurance.
Posted inPolitics
Miles Rapoport named national president of Common Cause
Miles S. Rapoport, a progressive activist who was a Connecticut legislator and a secretary of the state, was named Tuesday as the national president and chief executive of Common Cause, the nonpartisan government watchdog. Rapoport, 64, the president of Demos, a research and advocacy group, will begin work March 10, succeeding Bob Edgar, a former congressman who died in April at age 69. It will place Rapoport in Washington at a pivotal time for a key Common Cause issue: The continuing debate about the role of money in politics.
Posted inNews
Connecticut dairy farmers at center of fight over farm bill (updated)
Washington — Rep. Joe Courtney and the state’s dairy farmers are in a pitched battle with the most powerful member of the House of Representatives, Speaker John Boehner, a fight that has stalled the farm bill and whose outcome is likely to affect the price of milk across the country. “Speaker Boehner, in my opinion, is interjecting his own special interests agenda to the detriment of the farm industry and rural American as a whole,” Courtney said.
Posted inHealth
Uninsured Connecticut: Obamacare comes to Hartford
In their quest to help people sign up for insurance offered under the federal health law, the staff at Charter Oak Health Center have talked to more than 3,000 people. But a few stand out, like the man who was so happy to have insurance — for $49 a month — he was shouting on the way out. Or the young man with bad eyes who couldn’t afford glasses but would, as of Jan. 1, qualify for Medicaid.
Posted inPolitics
Connecticut Democrats outraised CT GOP 14-1 in final state finance report
The Connecticut Republican Party ended 2013 with a surplus of $14,292 in its state account, compared with $112,606 for Connecticut Democrats. The GOP had $16,675 in cash and debt of $2,383. Democrats had no debt.
Posted inNews
Connecticut credit card holders most likely to complain about Citibank
Connecticut ranks seventh in the nation when it comes to per capita complaints about credit card bills, says a new report by ConnPIRG, a consumer advocacy group. Citibank is the lending institution most often cited in complaints from Connecticut cardholders, ConnPIRG said. But nationally, Capital One was the most complained-about credit card issuer by total number of complaints, followed by Citibank, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase.
Posted inHealth
CT exchange’s private insurance customers skew older, male
Sixty percent of the people who signed up for private health plans through Connecticut’s health insurance exchange are 45 and older, according to figures released by the federal government Monday. That’s more than twice the share of people in the coveted under-35 age brackets. Twenty-one percent of enrollees are age 18 to 34.
Posted inPolitics
Walker switches from outside to inside game
David M. Walker once set for himself the task of saving the United States from crippling debt, a threat he sees as worthy of comparisons to the fall of the Roman Empire. Now, he will settle for saving Connecticut from bonding debt and unfunded pension obligations from a perch on the state’s Republican under ticket.
Posted inHealth
Anthem extends payment deadline again for Obamacare customers
Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield is giving customers until the end of the month to pay their January premium bills if they want coverage effective Jan. 1. The extension of the payment deadline to Jan. 31 comes as customers have struggled to get coverage set up for plans purchased through the state’s health insurance exchange, Access Health CT.
Posted inPolitics
Connecticut plans to launch open data portal
Every time an inmate enters or leaves a correction facility in Connecticut, a database is updated so the state has an accurate count of its incarcerated population. And each day, those numbers are used to produce a chart on the state’s website. It’s one of the few state “datasets” that is updated daily for the public. But it takes persistence to find the chart because it’s buried on the website of the state’s Office of Policy and Management (OPM), and it exists nowhere else, including on other government websites with state criminal justice data.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Murphy is in new Senate climate group
Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy is among a group of Democratic senators unveiling a climate change task force on Tuesday. Its goal, he said, is to combat what he called “Republican intransigence” on issues related to climate change.