The state-run health plan for municipal and other public-sector employees outside of state government paid almost $23 million more in claims than it collected in member premiums last fiscal year, according to a new report from Comptroller Sean Scanlon’s office. But Scanlon said this week the C onnecticut Partnership Plan remains fiscally sound and generally has performed in the black since member premiums were adjusted in 2019. “The partnership plan, like every other health plan in the United States of America, had a tough time last year,” Scanlon said, referring to surging hospital service fees and medical inflation in general. Since the early years of the coronavirus outbreak in 2020 and 2021, hospitals have been pressed to raise wages to avert staff shortages while federal Medicaid and Medicare payments failed to keep pace with medical inflation, according to the American Hospital Association. Patients also have been coming to facilities in greater numbers, and with more complex health problems, since the pandemic. The plan paid out nearly $731.4 million in claims in the 2024-25 fiscal year, which wrapped last June 30, about $22.6 million more than the premiums it collected from the roughly 60,000 public-sector workers and their family members that it serves. That data, included in Scanlon’s latest report on the program, sparked a sharp response from minority Republicans in the General Assembly. Sen. Tony Hwang of Fairfield, ranking Senate Republican on the Insurance and Real Estate Committee, and Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding of Brookfield, called it “a precursor to universal, single-payer health care in Connecticut” in a joint statement. The legislature voted in 2015 to establish the partnership to give municipal and other non-state public-sector workers another option for health coverage besides the plan offered by their municipality or regional governmental entity. Of Connecticut’s 169 cities and towns, 109 have a least a portion of their workers covered through the partnership. The comptroller’s office administers the program and contracts with private companies to manage benefits. In its first two fiscal years of operation, the plan paid out $31 million more for claims than it received in premiums. The legislature responded by changing premium calculations, which triggered higher fees for many enrollees. Hwang and Harding also noted state officials transferred nearly $40 million from an emergency federal COVID-relief grant into the partnership five years ago to keep the program balance healthy. And, Republican lawmakers asked, if state officials will tamper with this public program to keep it afloat rather than rely on the private insurance industry to cover these public-sector workers, what other state-sponsored health coverage programs are coming? But Scanlon, a Guilford Democrat, said the partnership plan is healthy, despite last fiscal year’s numbers — and GOP posturing. “I guess the clock struck 2026 and it’s campaign season, and the Senate Republicans are dusting off their playbook of old tropes and scare tactics,” he said. Scanlon added that “I don’t view that [2025 performance] as a harbinger of impending doom and crisis,” he said. “I view that as what’s happening to everybody is happening to us.” But programs like the partnership and insurance plans offered by private companies have to struggle with rising hospital and other medical costs — a problem that could get worse in future years as huge cuts in federal health care funding make it harder for more and more Americans to regularly visit a primary care physician. The comptroller added that since lawmakers reformed the premium-setting process, premium collections have exceeded claim payments in four of the last six years. And over longer periods of time, most plans finish periodically in the red, he said. Scanlon added that his office “is working always to find ways to save,” including trying to negotiate savings each year by steering participants to generic prescription drugs when possible. “We’re not just accepting these increases as a fait accompli we can do nothing about,” he said. ...read more read less