Wright seeks state funding for health care for uninsured

Press release from state Rep. Chris Wright, a Bristol Democrat:

REP. WRIGHT CO-SPONSORS BILL TO PROVIDE FUNDING FOR THE UNINSURED AT COMMUNITY HOSPITALS

State Representative Christopher Wright (D-Bristol) is co-sponsoring a bill that seeks to  fund community hospitals, like Bristol Hospital, that provide services for people who are uninsured.

Rep. Wright has joined legislative colleagues from Vernon and Putnam, to sponsor HB 6004, “An Act Concerning Health Care Services For The Uninsured At Community Hospitals.”

The bill is now before the legislature’s Public Health Committee which received favorable testimony at a recent public hearing.

“This is the beginning of a long legislative process to maintain funding for our community hospitals,” Rep. Wright explained, “The purpose of the bill is to guarantee funding for community hospitals, like our own Bristol Hospital, to help them pay for the vital services they provide for the uninsured.”

“There are certain core values that government needs to protect,” Rep. Wright said, “Among those priorities is healthcare help for our citizens.”

As legislative momentum continues to grow to restore the funding for community hospitals, HB 6004 may serve as the legislative vehicle for that goal.

“It’s necessary to point out this legislation represents an important first step that hopefully will restore the needed funding to our community hospitals who provide these very expensive services to the uninsured,” Rep. Wright said.

Copyright 2013. All rights reserved. Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

City backs insurance administration change

The city's Board of Finance last night approved the plan to dump Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield. It was an easy call, fiscal overseers said, because saving $1 million annually in these times is well worth the inconvenience it may cause some employees who may need to find a new dentist or doctor after July 1.
I know it's hard for city workers to contemplate a change, but since we've had more insurance companies than I can remember over the years doing the Press policy, I can assure them that they'll be fine. It's just a pain to wade into a new plan and to figure out what's different. At least city workers keep exactly the same benefits. That's the aspect that's usually most painful!
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Copyright 2010. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

City switching insurance administrators to save $1 million

There is a special Board of Finance meeting at 5:30 today to consider whether the city should dump Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield as the administrator of its health care spending. The move is expected to save nearly $1 million annually. For the story, click here.
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Copyright 2010. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

Health care revolt starts in Bristol?

On a steamy evening in Bristol Tuesday, about 50 people rallied in support of universal healthcare.
“The fight starts here. It starts on the local level,” said Mayor Art Ward.
State Rep. Frank Nicastro, a Democrat whose 79th District covers the southern third of Bristol, reminded those in attendance that the American Revolution didn’t start in the nation’s capital.
It began, he said, with a few rebels in Boston “and it grew and grew and grew.”
“We can do the same thing when it comes to health care,” Nicastro said.
Supporters said that 10 percent of Connecticut residents, many of them in Bristol, don’t have health insurance or they have plans that cost them so much they’re afraid to go to the doctor because they still can’t afford it.
More than 500 Bristol residents signed a petition calling for universal health care.
City councilors unanimously backed that call at Tuesday’s meeting. One member of the council, Republican Ken Cockayne, abstained because he sells insurance.
“You can be sure this City Council is behind this resolution wholeheartedly,” Ward said.
Jody Trestman, a city resident facing whopping health care bills each month, said that “a person’s health care should no longer be trumped by a corporation’s bottom line.”
Christopher Wright, the Democrats’ 77th District state House district candidate, said that providing health care for all is a moral issue.
In the richest state in the world’s most wealthy nation, he said, it is “just wrong” that so many people either don’t have insurance or they have inadequate coverage.
“We need to take care of the least of us,” Wright said. “It needs to start here.”
Democrat Jacqui Denski of Plymouth, who is taking on an incumbent Republican in the 78th state House district, said that access to health care is “directly related to income.”
“People are dying because they can’t afford something,” said state Sen. Tom Colapietro, a Bristol Democrat from the 31st District.
“We’re the only country in the world that runs our health care system for a profit,” said Jim Hopkins, who’s been organizing on the issue for a quarter century.
For more information, the organizers’ website is www.healthcare4every1.org.

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Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

Bristol ought to show some respect on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

It's been many years now since America decided to honor civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr by making his birthday a national holiday.
Across the country, there are ceremonies to mark the occasion, to pay respect to King and his causes, to keep alive the dream he embodied of a better world, for blacks as well as whites.
For some reason, though, Bristol has rarely seen fit to join the crowd.
In the best years, the city government has joined with the NAACP to hold an event that allowed for a public expression of our debt to King and to hail the America he helped to forge.
But too often, and this year may be no different, the city has done nothing.
In reporter Jackie Majerus' story today, leaders of Bristol's tiny NAACP chapter say they'd like to hold an event on the holiday in the auditorium at Memorial Boulevard School, as they sometimes have in the past.
But acting President Nicole Walker-Massari said the group can’t afford it this time.
“They want us to buy insurance,” Bill Whitehead, the former branch president, told Majerus.
So for the lack of a few hundred dollars, there apparently won't be a ceremony in Bristol, other than the religious one that the Beulah AME Zion Church sponsors.
It's incomprehensible, really.
A city of 61,000 residents should have a public ceremony on important occasions such as the King Holiday, which could be co-sponsored by the NAACP and other groups. But unless someone at City Hall steps up to the plate, it's not going to happen.
If the city won't take the lead, at the very least it shouldn't be forcing the NAACP to seek out insurance for taking on a task that it ought not have to do alone.
I understand the rationale for requiring $1 million insurance policies when a private group wants to use public space for a private event, whether it's a political fundraiser or the crowning of a beauty queen.
But why should the NAACP have to fork over money to do something for the community as a whole? Why, for that matter, should the Bristol Veterans Council have to buy insurance so it can hold Bristol's Veterans Day ceremony at the school?
If the city government is going to let groups take up the burden it refuses to shoulder itself, it should have the self-respect not to make them pay to do it as well.
I know Mayor Art Ward plans to talk today with city lawyers about this whole situation. I hope they'll see the big picture.
The narrow-minded focus on the bottom line, no matter what, that this policy is based on sends a rather stunning message to the community: the city government is not a partner. It's just another obstacle to doing something nice for Bristol.

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Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com