Lawmakers will consider 4 bills in special session

Gov. Ned Lamont and lawmakers have reached an agreement on four bills that will be voted on in a special legislative session early next week, the governor announced late Tuesday.

Legislators will consider bills to temporarily expand absentee voting for the November election and expand telehealth coverage for people with Medicaid and private insurance, as well as a limited bill to address police accountability and a bill that would cap the cost of insulin and supplies for diabetics.

Logistics of the session and opportunities for public participation were not immediately available.

Lamont also said the Bond Commission will meet Tuesday to consider a $325 million bonding agenda. Roughly $200 million is for school upgrades, and the rest is related to technical and communication upgrades.

Lamont’s emergency powers will expire in September, along with his executive orders issued during the pandemic, so legislative action is needed to address voting in November, as well as continue coverage for telehealth appointments.

“It is very important to me ... that we don’t want to see a long line of people waiting to vote in November,”

Lamont said. “We don’t know what the COVID epidemic will look like.”

The bill pertaining to criminal justice reform will be narrow and focused specifically on community policing reforms that would mirror those Lamont issued by executive order for the State Police force. Broader reforms to address policing and systemic racism in housing and health care have been proposed, but those likely won’t be addressed until September or later as the legislature and administration tries to maintain a focused agenda on the most pressing issues next week.

The bill to cap the cost of insulin and supplies was the legislature’s top priority for the 2020 session before it was cut short. The bill has strong bipartisan support and has already undergone the public forum and committee process, passing with nearly unanimous bipartisan support from the General Assembly’s insurance and real estate committee in early March.

The urgency has increased to implement caps on the cost of insulin and supplies amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as diabetics can be more severely affected by the virus, especially if they do not have access to the medication that keeps them alive.

But at the time the bill originally went through the committee process, many kinks in the legislation were still to be worked out, and there were questions as to how broad the legislation’s impact would be.

Insurers said it won’t lower the underlying, sky-high cost of insulin, the drug that keeps diabetics alive, which is set by three main pharmaceutical companies that make insulin. Others have quietly raised concerns about funding and logistics for a portion of the bill that would create an emergency access program.

Additionally, the legislation as originally written would only apply to the so-called fully insured market — roughly 32 percent of people insured in the state — and it is unknown how many diabetics are covered by fully insured plans or other plans. As a result, it is unclear how many people would actually be affected by the new law.

Lawmakers have continued to work behind the scenes throughout the pandemic, but it’s unclear yet if the final bill addresses those concerns.

“As we slowly get back to a new normal here in the Capitol building, I told the legislators I look forward to seeing them,” Lamont said. “Also told them I appreciate the confidence they had in me with the emergency powers.”