1. The publicly financed health insurance program this Bill would enact would decrease total health care expenditures in the State of Connecticut by over 2 billion dollars a year as per the 1992 Office of Health Care Access study on the benefit package delineated by this Bill.
   
   
2. The 2 billion dollar savings are the result of decreased insurer administrative expenses (67%), decreased hospital administrative expenses (14%), decreased physician administrative expenses (26%), decreased cost of purchasing medications and durable equipment (30-40%), and coordinating care throughout the state.
   
   
3. Addition savings, not considered by the Office of Health Care Access report, would result from:

• Decreased administrative expenses to the State as a result of consolidating health care administrative functions currently spread through several different departments
  
  
• Decreased insurance premiums on non health care insurance that have health care benefits attached to them (automobile insurance, work-man's compensation insurance, malpractice insurance)
  
  
• Involving physicians in developing quality assurance standards that are cost effective, and having those standards protect them from malpractice claims
  
  
• Emphasizing preventive care and allowing access to health care which will prevent medical illnesses or allow it to be treated early, when intervention is more effective and less costly
  

4. This Bill would solve the health care problems associated with our current multipayer system. It would provide health insurance for the uninsured. It would increase quality of care for the poor who seek health care under title 19 or title 21 (Husky) insurance programs. It would decrease out of pocket expenses for senior citizens and the disabled on Medicare. It would eliminate disruption of continuity of care, lack of confidentiality, and quality of care issues associated with employer based, managed care programs. It would make health insurance more affordable for small businesses. it would free workers from having to stay in unwanted Jobs in order to maintain health care insurance.
   
   
5. The Bill would create a democratic system for determining benefits, rates of compensation for health care providers, and taxes by creating a formal mechanism to allow consumers, providers and health care organizations to advise the public insurer before making budgetary recommendations to the state legislature.
   
   
6. The Bill is consistent with the wishes of the population. In the last poll on this subject by the Hartford Courant in 1990, 60% of the population supported publicly financed universal health insurance. Furthermore, the vast majority of the population believe access to health care should be a right of citizenship. The CT Council of Bishops is on public record in support of universal health care.
   
   
7. The public financing of health insurance is not socialized medicine. This is a health insurance financing system, not a health care delivery system. The delivery of health care is left in a competitive, free market system. In fact the medical free market system, which has been undercut by managed, corporate health insurance, would be strengthened by this Bill.
   
   
8. There would be no lines under this system because the State of Connecticut has a sufficient oversupply of health care providers and diagnostic equipment (35%) to handle the increased demand (15%) associated with this Bill.
   
   
9. The Bill is acceptable to health care providers because it would not reduce income, it would eliminate frustration with managed care, and give providers a meaningful voice in determining rates, benefits, and quality assurance standards. Voting by the New Milford Hospital Medical Staff revealed 4 of 5 physicians in favor of this Bill. A Just released study in the New England Journal of Medicine shows a majority of academic physicians, residents, and medical students favor a single payer, publicly financed health insurance program, and prefer that system over a managed care system by three to one.