With only two weeks left in the legislative session, a Democratic lawmaker and the state comptroller are feverishly working to bring to the House floor proposed legislation that is considered Connecticut’s most comprehensive effort so far to control high prescription drug costs.
Connecticut Business and Industry Association
Posted inMoney
Business community cautious with new fiscal stability plan for CT
Connecticut’s business leaders offered much praise but were more cautious with their support when it came to the recommendations of the state’s Commission on Fiscal Stability and Economic Growth.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
DEEP wants sneak environmental permit rule reversed
Slid into last year’s budget during final negotiations was a provision that limits the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to 90 days to either approve or deny a laundry list of nearly four-dozen permits. If DEEP doesn’t take action, the permit automatically goes into effect. DEEP calls the sneak change “awful public policy,” and the fight is on.
Posted inMoney
Economist Gioia: ‘Historic’ state budget will boost business confidence
A vice president and economist with the Connecticut Business and Industry Association, Peter Gioia has spent the past 18 years with the state’s chief business lobby, managing its research department and tracking Connecticut’s economy through a quarterly survey. In this week’s Sunday Conversation he talks about the recently approved, bipartisan state budget; the long struggle to adopt it, and its impact on Connecticut’s business community.
Posted inEducation, Money, Politics
Big deficits two years from now could undercut tax cut promises
While the new state budget promises an array of tax cuts two and three years from now, it also leaves the next governor and legislature to close a $4.6 billion projected shortfall — far larger than the deficit lawmakers addressed in the current plan.
Posted inHealth, Politics
CT businesses, employees face hikes in health care premiums
WASHINGTON – When the Affordable Care Act open enrollment period for health insurance begins on Wednesday, many individuals who buy their own policies will suffer sticker shock because of a sharp increase in premiums. But the state’s large and small businesses are girding for higher premiums to cover their workers in 2018 too. And they and their employees will face tough choices.
Posted inPolitics
CT business group likes Trump focus on skilled immigrants, but not limits
WASHINGTON — President Trump has embraced a bill that would drastically cut legal immigration to the United States, but it has drawn criticism from labor, business and immigrant advocates who say it would hurt Connecticut’s economy. The legislation has little chance of congressional approval, but has opened a new front in the debate over immigration.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
CT’s delayed energy plan could mean trouble for Millstone bill
With TV ads and ferocious lobbying on both sides of the issue, it’s unclear whether any legislation to help out the Millstone Nuclear Power Station will survive this legislative session. A delay in the release of an updated state energy strategy isn’t helping matters.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Labor study: Businesses can pay more to preserve CT’s quality of life
Connecticut businesses can afford — and should pay — higher taxes to support investments in education, health care and other priorities to grow the economy and preserve quality of life, a report sponsored by the state’s biggest labor group urged Wednesday.
Posted inHealth
Insurance coverage mandates would face more analysis under Malloy proposal
The prospect of requiring health insurance plans to cover specific treatments or services is an annual debate in the Connecticut General Assembly, often pitting patients who faced problems against critics who say mandates raise insurance premiums. Now the governor wants to change the process – a proposal that’s drawn both praise and opposition.
Posted inMoney
One study finds Connecticut a fine place to do business
A new study issued this month by the Council on State Taxation concludes Connecticut actually is tied for the most favorable business climate — if one considers not just the cost of doing business, but the potential for earning big profits here. But it warns against interpreting that to mean that Connecticut is a low-tax environment overall.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
CT works on a new energy strategy as old one misses the mark
The three-year update to Connecticut’s Comprehensive Energy Strategy, underway now, faces dramatically changed energy, environmental and political landscapes that raise questions about whether the first strategy, with its focus on natural gas, may have partially wasted the last three years.
Posted inHealth, Politics
CT business community on watch over ACA repeal effort
WASHINGTON — GOP plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act would affect individuals who’ve been purchasing their coverage on state exchanges or through the expansion of Medicaid the most, but some who receive their health care from their employers are also likely to be affected.
Posted inPolitics
‘Grand Old Party’ outflanked CT Democrats in web campaigning
Joe Crisco’s name was on a campaign billboard in his hometown of Woodbridge. His lawn signs dotted the seven towns in his state Senate district to the west and north of New Haven. His flyers arrived in the mail, same as every other race the Democrat has run since 1992. You just couldn’t find him on your computer or smartphone.
Posted inPolitics
CT Senate leaders blame Democratic losses on PACs, not policies
Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, blames the rare loss of Democratic legislative seats in a presidential year on the targeted spending by business groups, not voter dissatisfaction with Hartford after two decades of Democratic control of the Connecticut General Assembly. His GOP counterpart’s view: “Hogwash.”