General Assembly restores funding

Malloy threatens to veto ‘quick fix’ bill

HARTFORD — The General Assembly on Monday easily passed a temporary fix to restore full Medicare benefits for more than 90,000 elderly and disabled residents who rely on the money for office visits and other procedures.

The House passed the bill by a veto-proof margin of 130-3 and the Senate followed with a resounding vote of 32-1.

“Our seniors are just too critical a part of our population for us to turn our backs on them,” said state Sen. Carlo Leone, D-Stamford. “It’s nice to see we have the bipartisanship to move forward.”

The bipartisan bill hammered out last week makes about $54 million in adjustments to the state budget to enable payments for office visits, blood work and other procedures through this year. The stopgap measure does not fund the program in 2019.

Last year, lawmakers cut the Medicare Savings Program during a special session to adopt a long delayed state budget and plug a more than $1 billion deficit.

In the process, the bipartisan vote for the budget cut the Medicare program.

Lawmakers have since heard from thousands of upset senior citizens living on fixed incomes who rely on the extra Medicare money provided by the state.

“One grandmother said ‘how can I afford to buy Christmas presents if I have to pay this’ ” said state Sen. Mae Flexer, D-Killingly. “We pay programs like this because we value our seniors. This is an example of what makes us different as a state. But we are giving seniors some security in the short term — but what are we going to do next year?”

To restore the funding, lawmakers cut $19.3 million in savings from the teacher’s retirement account, reduced “other expenses” by $10 million, removed $6 million in savings from state managers and consultants and $1.34 million from a consolidation of the Department of Administrative Services.

The remaining $17.3 million is covered by retaining

a transfer in already planned in the current two year state budget.

“We are here to fix a small bump in the road,” said state Rep. Jay Case, R-Winchester. “The (Medicare) program affects some of the most near and dear people who really need this money to help get them through.”

But state Rep. Diana Urban, D-North Stonington, said she is voting against the bill and urged lawmakers to take up the issue when the Legislature convenes next month to make budget adjustments.

“I understand the program is safe through July,” Urban said. “We are coming back in February and the right way to budget is all at once. Piecemeal budgeting can only cause problems.”

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy had threatened to veto the bill, saying it’s a quick fix that increases the state budget deficit by nearly $18 million.

Lawmakers are already facing a more than $200 million deficit in the current two year budget.

But before the Legislature voted on Monday — by veto proof margins — Malloy did not reissue his veto threat. Instead, the governor told reporters

lawmakers were “double counting” $20 million in already allocated funding and said their plan to restore Medicare benefits will make the deficit worse.

“I don’t have objections to their taking on issues,” Malloy said. “I understand what they are doing. The main reason is to address health benefits for a group of individuals.”

Malloy said, “I think double counting money is not a good way to do that. Communications are a two-way street. From time to time we are caused to put the budget back in balance. When we count funded money toward putting that back in balance it’s not a good idea to count it a second time. There is a disagreement in respect to that.”

The governor did announce good news on Monday: the state expected to receive $900 million more in personal income taxes during December and January.

He said some of that money is attributable to advance payments by residents to avoid changes in deductions at the federal level.

Still, Malloy held out hope a portion of the additional tax revenue could help pay down the ongoing deficit.

“We have a long ways to go until the end of the fiscal year,” he said.