Some in the California state legislature are looking to create a new Basic Health Plan as part of implementing the Affordable Care Act. The law give states the option of automatically putting people making less than 200% of the Federal Poverty Level in a state run Basic Health Plan instead of forcing them to buy [...]

Earlier this year, Connecticut’s Democratic Governor, Dannel Malloy, reached a deal that effectively gutted much of the SustiNet proposal that was a top goal of many health care activists in Connecticut. Originally, the SustiNet plan would have combined everyone currently covered by the state into a single insurance pool, and they would be offered a [...]

It looks like the possibility of a strong, state-based public option in Connecticut has been killed by the state’s top Democrats, lead by Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy. From the CT Mirror: The Malloy administration and Democratic legislative leaders have reached an agreement on the proposed SustiNet state-run health plan, with a deal that calls for [...]

The SustiNet health care bill recently cleared its first of many legislative huddles in Connecticut. From Hartford Courant: The SustiNet health bill cleared a hurdle in the General Assembly on Monday when the public health committee voted 16-10 to approve it — with minor changes. Under SustiNet, Connecticut would create large pools of health care [...]

Connecticut is poised to be on the leading progressive edge of what is possible under the new federal health care law by providing a rather robust state-based public option. If the state adopts the proposed SustiNet health plan (PDF) it would integrate the many different group insurance plans the state currently provides into a unified [...]

While co-ops were once proposed as a possible alternative to the public option, the idea failed to gain public traction outside of the offices of Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Rep. Mike Ross (D-AR). Yet, like some sort of legislative vestigial organ, the Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan (CO-OP) was never removed from the final [...]

The subsidized private health insurance exchanges created by the new health care law are going to do a very poor job of providing affordable health care to the low income Americans they are meant to serve, according to a new draft report to the Connecticut General Assembly from the Sustinet Health Partnership Board of Directors. [...]