Advocates sang an original “health care is a right” a cappella at the State Capitol Tuesday, marking the launch of their health justice legislative campaign.
The Health Justice NOW campaign calls for changes to health coverage and care in Connecticut by addressing medical debt, insurance costs and quality of care in the midst of federal funding cuts.
“We are calling for systemic improvements that address the root causes of this crisis and not just its symptoms,” said Kally Moqute, Senior Manager of Policy and Advocacy at Health Equity Solutions.
Over a dozen health and community advocacy groups are backing this campaign, including Connecticut for All and HUSKY 4 Immigrants who advocated for the protection of health care access for immigrant communities last week.
Dale “Sparky” Elliott, an SEIU 1199 New England member, is a personal care assistant to his son. He said the whole health care system needs to be fixed.
“Sometimes it's not even the cuts you feel first. It's the difficulty,” Elliott said. “It's the fear that if you miss one form or one appointment or one box gets checked wrong, your child could lose coverage, not because they don't qualify, but because the system is being set up in a way that makes it easy for families to fall through the cracks.”
Chris Altrock with the Connecticut Institute for Refugees & Immigrants said the federal government’s cuts to Medicaid leaves Connecticut with a choice.
“We can allow federal policy to quietly unravel years of smart, compassionate public health, or we can step in with state level health care assistance to protect those most at risk,” Altrock said.
Per the campaign, health advocates say they’re looking for lawmakers to minimize the risk of medical debt by controlling the cost of care upstream, guarantee quality care coverage with innovative insurance options that people can afford, and extend access to health care for all, regardless of income or immigration status.
“Unhealthy communities means people aren't going to work. People can't buy things if they don't get to go to work to get paid,” Moqute said. “That's what needs to be considered at this point.”
Proposed funding cuts for expanded coverage
In this year’s proposed budget, Governor Ned Lamont has proposed to remove funding that was intended to make systemic changes to emergency Medicaid for undocumented immigrants.
According to the language in the proposed budget, the $700,000 in funding set for fiscal year 2027 would “allow individuals, who meet Medicaid eligibility requirements but do not qualify due to their immigration status, to apply in advance for emergency Medicaid coverage for emergency medical conditions that could be treated in outpatient settings rather than in hospital emergency departments.”
This initiative passed last year, but the cut is being proposed due to “significant cost and programmatic concerns associated with such an expansion,” according to Communications Director Chris Collibee of the Connecticut Office of Policy Management (OPM).
Collibee also said the “extensive systems changes” required under the federal One Big Beautiful Bill Act add to those concerns. For this change to be enacted, the state would need to expand emergency Medicaid coverage for specified conditions beyond life threatening or debilitating ailments that require immediate medical attention, like a heart attack or broken bone, requiring a new definition for “emergency medical condition.”
OPM Interim Secretary Joshua Wojcik said it would also be challenging to get approval for a new definition from the federal government due to its current “very specific definitions of what constitute an emergency.”
“In order for us to be able to focus on the changes and adjustments that we need to make to minimize the impacts of H.R. 1 [the One Big Beautiful Bill Act] and some federal pullbacks, we thought it was appropriate to leave in place current law in terms of emergency services,” Wojcik said.
Collibee echoed this sentiment, saying in a written statement, “Spending $700,000 on systems changes to implement benefits that are unlikely to be approved or implemented in the near future is difficult to justify.”
State Senator and Senate Chair of the Public Health Committee Saud Anwar said this will be looked at in committee.
“That's where we step in. Perhaps the governor is afraid. We are not,” Anwar said. “We are actually going to, in the appropriation committee, have frank conversations, a public hearing, and we'll fix what needs to be fixed.”
Anwar spoke at the Health Justice NOW campaign press conference Tuesday, advocating for preventative health care. Deputy Senate Majority Leader and Senate Chair for the Human Services Committee Matt Lesser was there with him.
“We're going to be raising legislation to try to figure this out. How are we going to make health care affordable for the people of Connecticut?” Lesser said.
Connecticut Public’s Michayla Savitt contributed to this report.
