If voters this November return Sean Scanlon to the state comptroller’s office, 100,000 to 200,000 more people may get affordable health care. So Scanlon vowed Thursday. Democrat Scanlon, 39, who’s running for a second four-year term for the job of administering and monitoring how the stat e pays its bills, made that vow in a campaign interview Thursday on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program. He predicted that a quest he began in 2019 as a state legislator — to create a version of a “public option” health insurance plan for small businesses and individuals unable to afford quality coverage — is on the precipice of approval next year. As one of the crafters of the plan, he’d be in the role of helping it win approval in the legislature. “Public option” plans involve both government and private insurers. Government contracts with the insurers to offer lower-cost plans with dedicated networks of providers. Scanlon (then a legislator) and other advocates succeeded in passing a version in one house in 2019 and sought to revive it in 2021, but it failed as Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont threatened to veto it. This year Lamont, facing a Democratic gubernatorial challenge from the left, has embraced a new version of the idea, a “CT Option,” that would have a private health insurer administer the program. He and Scanlon have hit the hustings promoting it. Meanwhile, Scanlon said, they’re working with actuaries and other consultants to work out the details of a plan to submit to the legislature in 2027. Scanlon said Thursday that the plan would offer the kind of network plan his office administers on behalf of 250,000 state employees and retirees and municipal workers. It would cover an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 individuals and employees of small businesses and not-for-profit agencies. He said the size of the customer pool would enable his office to negotiate lower rates and better coverage than those individuals and small employers can on their own. “Ten years ago, when I first started in politics, I’d go visit a business. They would talk to me about taxes. They would talk about the fiscal instability of the state. They don’t talk about that anymore. They talk about healthcare costs and they talk about energy costs. Those are two things that are really hurting businesses that I think we really have to fix,” Scanlon said on “Dateline.” Some on the left — advocates of “Medicare for All”-style fully government-run single-payer plans — argue that public option plans (like Obamacare) don’t fix the problem because they rely on private insurers with business models aimed at extracting as much money from customers while delivering as few promised benefits back as possible. Scanlon said he supports a federal single-payer plan. On a recent Reddit “Ask Me Anything” forum he told a questioner that he’s “fine” with the idea of New England states creating a joint single-payer plan. (Vermont passed its own single-payer plan but couldn’t make it work.) But passage of those single-payer plans aren’t on the near-term horizon, Scanlon noted. Meanwhile too many people are struggling to afford health care. “Doing nothing — or just saying, ‘We have to keep trying to find the votes for some bigger thing’ — we don’t need to do that. The votes are there for this. The governor supports it. I support it. I think we’re going to get it done” next year. Scanlon was considered a potential gubernatorial candidate this year until Lamont decided to seek a third four-year term. He’s expected to resurface as one in the future. What happens with the option may end up influencing if that happens. This year he faces Republican Jen Tooker in the race for state comptroller. Click here to read and watch a previous WNHH “Dateline” interview with her. Click on the below video to watch the full conversation with state Comptroller Sean Scanlon on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven,” including discussion of his recent work as “P Card Cop” establishing rules for how state officials may and may not use their government-issued credit cards. Click here to subscribe or here to listen to other episodes of “Dateline New Haven. Preview of a 2030 gubernatorial match-up? Fazio and Scanlon at WNHH FM. The post Scanlon: Reelect Me To Finish Health “Option” Job appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less