Dems Double Down On Health Pitch

In the last hours before polls open across the state, Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz stood in a whipping wind next to a ballot drop box in Hamden to make what has crystallized as Connecticut Democrats’ main pitch just before Tuesday’s election: Vote Democrat if you like your healthcare.

With every Democrat who represents Hamden in Hartford standing behind her, alongside one Hartford hopeful and U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Bysiewicz cast Tuesday’s local races as a fight for the ideals of Democrats nationwide.

Above all, she and her colleagues said in the noon press conference Monday, the race is about healthcare.

“Healthcare and access to quality affordable healthcare is on the ballot,” Bysiewicz began. ​“Human rights, reproductive rights are on the ballot. LGBTQ+ protections are on the ballot, and racial equality is on the ballot.”

Bysiewicz (pictured above) was standing outside the Keefe Community Center in Hamden. She had come to make a final appeal to voters to get out and vote for the Democrats running for seats representing Hamden in the state legislature, and in the U.S. Congress. Behind her were Sen. Martin Looney, Rep. Mike D’Agostino, Rep. Robyn Porter, Rep. Josh Elliott, Sen. Gary Winfield (who represents New Haven and West Haven, but not Hamden), senate candidate Jorge Cabrera, and U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro.

One by one, each politician stepped up to a podium with no microphone and shouted over the howling wind that wheeled the nearby gate hiding a dumpster around on its hinges, and sometimes, in particularly strong gusts, nudged the podium itself a few inches on its wheels.

At the national level, Democratic attention has turned to the possible dismantling of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) after Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court last week. And as national Democrats have highlighted their defense of the ACA to help give momentum to their bids for the presidency and congress, Democrats in local Connecticut races have done the same, as CTMirror’s Jenna Carlesso reported Monday. Last week, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy implored voters to choose Cabrera for the state’s 17th senate district because protecting healthcare could come to the state legislature in the absence of the ACA, he said.

“It is about healthcare,” DeLauro said over the wind. ​“It is about healthcare. We know that the healthcare crisis is beyond the pale.”

DeLauro, like every politician at the Keefe Center Tuesday except for Bysiewicz, is on the ballot Tuesday. Like others running in Hamden, she has a challenger: Republican Margaret Streicker.

Looney, D’Agostino, Winfield, and Elliott all also have challengers. Looney has Republican Jameson White and petitioning candidate Alex Taubes vying for his seat (read more about that race here, here, and here). D’Agostino has fellow Democrat Weruché George making a long-shot bid against him as a petitioning candidate. Winfield is fending off challenges from Independent Jason Bartlett and Republican Carlos Alvarado. Elliott is fighting back a robust challenge from Republican and Hamden-based realtor Kathy Hoyt. Porter is running unopposed.

None of those races has received quite the amount of attention that Cabrera’s has, though. Cabrera challenged incumbent Republican George Logan in 2018 and lost by 77 votes. He is trying again, and on Monday, he and his fellow Democrats tried to use his vision for affordable healthcare to push him across the finish line. Read more about the race here, here, here, and here.

Cabrera told the story of a voter he spoke with in Derby recently who has cancer. He said the man is still paying off his first surgery, and is not sure whether he will go in for another surgery because he is afraid it could bankrupt his family.

Cabrera, who is a business representative at United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 919, has come out in support of a public healthcare option in Connecticut. Sen. Matt Lesser and Rep. Sean Scanlon introduced a bill last year that he said he would support. The bill failed.

This year, that bill will likely come back, Looney and Bysiewicz said. Bysiewicz said she had spoken with Scanlon recently who said he plans to bring the bill back.

Cabrera and Looney touted the bill as a pro-small-business bill. It would give small businesses the option to enroll their employees in a state-run plan. Those who opt in would become a part of the plans that the state already administers for state and municipal employees.

“Small businesses who really analyze this carefully would be in support of this,” said Looney.

Looney said the state has already passed some legislation to protect residents if the ACA is overturned. He pointed to the 10 essential health benefits that the legislature required insurers to provide in a 2018 bill meant to ensure that those protections enshrined in the ACA remain in state law should the national law disappear. They include emergency services, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, prescription drugs, among other benefits.

Those benefits would not be available to employees in self-insured benefit plans, though. They only cover residents in state-licensed health plans. Since 50 percent of privately insured Connecticut residents are in self-insured plans, that means the state’s 10 essential benefits legislation would still not protect many residents if the ACA is repealed.

When the bill passed in 2018, Logan supported it, as did most of his Republican colleagues in the senate.

The Democrats at the Keefe Center repeated a claim about Republicans, and about Logan specifically, that has become common both at the national level and on social media in local races: That he doesn’t have a plan for healthcare.

“What I know is the candidate in the 17th who is not my candidate, not my Jorge, who says to people ​‘I’ll think about it,’ well, you know what that means,” said Winfield (pictured above) Monday. ​“He says to people ​‘well, I have to hear what the other side says.’ Well, the other side of healthcare is no healthcare.”

On The Hospital Board, ​“For Crying Out Loud”

Last week, a Cabrera ad circulated on Facebook accusing Logan of having no healthcare plan. It lifted a few sentences from an Independent article in which Logan said he could work with or without the ACA.

Logan defended his record and his stance on healthcare in a Monday phone call.

He pointed to the 10 essential benefits bill, which he supported, saying he, like Democrats, has worked to protect the protections enshrined in the ACA.

“My opinion on this is that the Democratic leadership again is just trying to deflect from their poor leadership, and not talk about that fact that we’re in a financial crisis here in Connecticut,” he said. ​“To pin the healthcare emergency on me I think is a bit ridiculous.”

“I’m on the Griffin Hospital Board of Directors for crying out loud,” he said. ​“We’ve been pushing preventive care to focus more on keeping the population in Connecticut healthy as opposed to just treating those who are sick. But to think that I’m supposed to solve the federal healthcare mess that we have, I think that’s a bit ridiculous.”

He said he thinks it’s absurd for his Democratic colleagues to pin the problems and debates about federal healthcare legislation on him. He said he has been pushing the state’s federal delegation to fix the law, but that as a state senator, federal policies are not in his wheelhouse.

He also repeated the stance on the ACA that spawned his rival’s last-ditch attack ad last week. ​“I’m fine with fixing the ACA, and I’m fine with replacing the ACA as long as we come up with a healthcare system that works — as long as no one is left behind,” he said.

Though fixing healthcare in Connecticut will require fixing it at the national level, he said, the state can enact ​“stopgap” measures. Enshrining particular benefits is one way, he said.

In particular, he said he thinks the state needs to find a way to make preventive care more accessible and affordable. ​“It’s a matter of prioritizing the billions of dollars of tax dollars that we currently receive from folks in Connecticut,” he said of how to do so.

Logan said he does not, however, support a public option. He said the state-run plan would compete unfairly with private health insurance companies, and could drive them out of the state. ​“If we damage and hurt the private insurance industry here in Connecticut, the only other option is for this state-run program to bring in more and more and more residents, and that will just drive up the cost of living for residents,” he said. He said the state cannot afford to administer such a large plan, and would not do a good job.

Polls are open Tuesday from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Click here to find out your polling place. If you have an absentee ballot, you can drop it off in the drop box on the steps of Hamden Government Center or outside the Keefe Center in the parking lot if you are a Hamden resident, or outside the Hall of Records at 200 Orange Street if you live in New Haven. Ballots can be brought to the drop boxes until 8 p.m. on Tuesday.

Hamden residents who are not registered to vote can register and vote on election day. They can do so at Hamden Senior Center at 2901 Dixwell Ave. from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m. Enter through the Thornton Wilder Hall lobby, right next to the doors to Miller Memorial Library.

New Haven’s election-day registration location is at City Hall.

Watch Monday’s full press conference below.