The state is poised to open its employee health plan to municipalities and school districts, a controversial concept long advocated by labor unions, town officials and Democratic legislators.
The health and human services portions of Malloy's proposed budget adjustments include money to support an effort to move people out of nursing homes, add three childhood vaccines to the state's program and offer the first funding boost in five years to private human services providers.
The administration also intends to move ahead with plans to seek permission from the federal government to add enrollment restrictions and scale back benefits in a Medicaid program for low-income adults without minor children, a move that has drawn criticism from advocates and some key lawmakers.
Read moreGov. Dannel P. Malloy unveiled a revised, $20.73 billion budget plan for the next fiscal year, adding nearly $330 million in spending over the preliminary budget, largely to fund additional education aid for towns and to bolster the state employees' pension fund.
After recent retirements, the state Department of Social Services is relying on retirees hired back through a vendor for information technology work -- so much so that the commissioner has warned that a potential ethics opinion discouraging the practice could lead to "a threat to public health, safety and welfare."
Child Advocate Jeanne Milstein related an anecdote from her office: Two girls, 2- and 3-year-old siblings, were removed from an abusive environment. The state breathed a sigh of relief, and moved on. Neither child nor their mother received further support or counseling for the effects of the trauma.
The girls then began acting out in school.
"Then we just start to not treat them for their trauma," she said, "but start to hold them accountable for their behavior. And then they become adolescents, and we start to blame them."
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Under Connecticut law, a home health aide can spend all day caring for you, but if you need help taking your pills, you'll need a nurse to come give them to you.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy next week will recommend changing that, a move his administration says could save the state millions of dollars and remove a barrier that keeps people from moving out of nursing homes.
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"It appears that DSS is taking a step backwards from the way Medicaid has been interpreted," state Child Advocate Jeanne Milstein said. "These kids are supposed to get whatever medical services are available that will allow them to reach their highest levels of functioning."
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Advocates for low-income residents want the state to create a new health program for poor adults who don't get Medicaid coverage, and they say lawmakers must commit to doing so this year to make it work as part of federal health reform.
"We should take this opportunity and we need to take it now," said Jane McNichol, executive director of the Legal Assistance Resource Center of Connecticut.
Read moreGov. Dannel P. Malloy secured Connecticut's investment in a major genetic research initiative Monday -- but not before one more partisan debate.
Sen. Edith G. Prague, D-Columbia, returned to the State Capitol on Friday for the first time since her stroke on Christmas, showing no ill effects and pronouncing herself a candidate for re-election this fall.
"I am running for my seat. There's no question," Prague said after attending a press conference on home health care. "Too many important things are happening. I have to be here."
Spurred by a new study showing the high costs of treating the mentally ill in prison, the Malloy administration is searching for ways to treat nonviolent offenders outside the prison system.
It costs Connecticut nearly double to both incarcerate and treat an offender with serious mental illnesses, compared with the price of treatment alone, according to a new academic study that analyzed social service and correction trends in 2006 and 2007.
Despite the down economy, the need for home care workers is booming. But experts worry about finding enough people to take jobs that often come with low pay, no benefits, and a history of being devalued.
Read moreThere's still nearly two years before the major pieces of federal health reform roll out, but for the planners designing Connecticut's health insurance exchange, one of the central pieces of the law, the time line is much tighter.
State regulators have disciplined Waterbury Hospital after unannounced visits found multiple violations of care standards, including the continued use of psychiatric patient beds with side rails in the days after a patient used one to attempt suicide by hanging. The patient ultimately died.
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DSS Commissioner Roderick Bremby likes to illustrate the balance of human and technological solutions with a story: If he told people to take down a tree and handed them a pocket knife, they'd have trouble. He could send in 10 more people with pocket knives. Or he could get them a chainsaw. The problem is, what happens before the chainsaws are available?
Read moreDCF spends $16.4 million a year on mental and behavioral health services, a sum that translates to about $30,000 for each child. But one of every five children has private health insurance that is not covering what their doctors say is needed, leaving the state to pick up the tab. That's about to change.
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A three-year investigation has determined that a tenured professor at the University of Connecticut Health Center fabricated and falsified data, the health center announced Wednesday. The health center has started dismissal proceedings against Dipak K. Das, director of the Cardiovascular Research Center and a professor in the department of surgery. It has notified 11 scientific journals that have published studies Das has conducted, frozen all externally funded research in his lab and declined $890,000 in federal grants that he was awarded.
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The state Department of Social Services has failed to employ enough workers to process Medicaid applications in the timeframe required by federal law, leaving thousands of low-income residents without access to health care coverage, legal aid attorneys alleged in a federal class action lawsuit filed Monday.
Farmington -- Gov. Dannel P. Malloy marked his first anniversary in office today by finalizing the deal for the state to invest $291 million in a genetics research institute at the University of Connecticut Health Center.
The state's partnership with The Jackson Laboratory, a world-renowned research center in Maine, is an attempt to ride the field of personalized medicine into a new economy.
"The very thing that was buying me time was taken away," said Susan Block, 72, of West Hartford, a healthy, avid cyclist, gardener and yoga instructor before her diagnosis. "The very thing that was giving me hope was withdrawn."
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"This is an investment worthy of being made."
Gov. Malloy to charter school students who had been bused to the Capitol Tuesday evening to thank him for proposing an increase in funds for charters.
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Top donors to the CT congressional delegation
1. United Technologies, $197,500
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4. Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder, $106,510
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