DeStefano stumps for health care

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DeStefano stumps for health care

The New Haven Register June 01, 2006

Mary E. O'Leary

HARTFORD - Standing across from the Wal-Mart on Flatbush Avenue, Mayor John DeStefano Jr. challenged the marketing giant Wednesday to offer affordable health care plans to keep its employees off state assistance.

DeStefano, who is seeking the Democratic Party's nomination for governor in an August primary, said 800 Wal-Mart workers and 1,600 of their dependents used the state's HUSKY plan (Healthcare for Uninsured Kids and Youths) in 2004 for a cost of $5.6 million to taxpayers.

"That's just wrong," DeStefano said as he offered his universal health care proposal that he would pay for by cutting the $620 million in what he characterized as state tax loopholes.

"I believe in this richest state in this richest nation in the world, it is just the right thing to do," DeStefano said of his proposal, which offers a carrot, rather than a stick approach to participation.

By spending the equivalent of 5 percent of payroll on health care, large businesses could have their state corporate taxes cut in half, while medium-size and small businesses would have them eliminated, under the plan.

"No company in Connecticut shifts more of their health-care cost to the taxpayer as does Wal-Mart," said DeStefano.

The same 2004 study had 741 workers from Stop & Shop on HUSKY for a cost of $5.1 million to taxpayers; 530 workers at Dunkin' Donuts, who cost the state $3.6 million; 460 McDonalds' employees, costing $3.1 million. The total cost to Connecticut was $20 million for more than 3,000 workers covered by HUSKY.

Kelly Hobbs, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, said her company "is continuing to work to provide access to affordable health care and we have made improvements to our plan just this year."

She did not have current figures, but felt more workers might have taken advantage of its newest Value Plan, which costs $65 a month for a family, and allows three doctor visits and three prescriptions per family member before a $3,000 deductible kicks in.

The average full-time worker at Wal-Mart nationally earns $17,114, according to its Web site, and the company had profits of $11.2 billion last year.

Wal-Mart has 35 stores in Connecticut and employees over 9,000 residents, Hobbs said.

Hobbs said Wal-Mart now insures 47 percent of its 1.3 million workers nationwide.

Under DeStefano's plan, the state would create the Connecticut HealthCare Consortium that individuals and businesses could buy into to create a large risk pool. It would offer a basic prevention-based plan, as well as more elaborate ones with employers responsible for 80 percent of the costs and workers 20 percent.

"It makes sense to move from a system based on emergency room service to one based on prevention. (Gov. M.) Jodi Rell has no plan to address this issue. She doesn't acknowledge that there are 370,000 in this state without health care, 50,000 more than last year," DeStefano said.

Rell spokesman Rich Harris called the mayor's proposal, which would cost $343 million, "the most ill-conceived tax plan in a generation." He said it amounts to a "shell game," where companies would pick up the cost after losing tax exemptions.

Harris said the problem of the uninsured will be solved with the combined efforts of the state, businesses and the health industry. "The solution is not an overblown state program that is funded with a grotesque tax increase," Harris said.

DeStefano said the $620 million in credits and exemptions hasn't helped add jobs in the state with Connecticut ranked last in the nation in terms of job creation.

Richard Pomp, a University of Connecticut law professor who studies the state tax system, said it "leaks like a sieve" and closing corporate tax loopholes "is long overdue. When you understand how it really works, you see how the deck is really loaded against small mom and pop and medium-sized businesses."