Connecticut. The center of the American insurance industry. Republican governernor, conservative leanings. Heavy on free-market economics. Just the place you’d bet on to be the center of the revolution in sustainable healthcare reform, right?

Well, as it turns out, The CT legislature just overturned Governor Rell’s veto of the bill creating SustiNet, an attempt at a reasonable, paced exploration of the best means to overhaul the health care system in Connecticut, as broken as anywhere else. An alternative to the runaway costs in neighboring Massachusetts, might this be the pilot program so many have been calling for?

SustiNet is the result of a grass roots effort spearheaded by a small business owner who couldn’t afford medical coverage for his employees, but still felt compelled to pay out of his own pocket to help when any of them needed it. He knew they couldn’t afford up to $1200 in monthly premiums for individual plans, and found no viable options for himself as a business owner either. He was fed up, and decided to do something about it. Two years later he’s a bit of a local rock star, and the legislation is moving forward.

Timeline for SustiNet program in Connecticut

SustiNet, when its nine-member board of directors is in place this week, is charged with developing a framework for a public insurance option in Connecticut that would compete in the private marketplace.

It must report back to the legislature by January 2011 on the details of a self-insured model, that puts state employees, Medicaid Husky recipients, interested small businesses, towns, nonprofits and individuals under one umbrella for administrative purposes.

SustiNet would start taking enrollees in July 2012, with the full plan probably not in place until 2017 when they estimate 98 percent of the Connecticut population would have insurance coverage.

Currently, there are some 300,000 Connecticut residents without health insurance, part of the 47 million across the country, while thousands of others are underinsured.

SustiNet was developed after five years of study and campaigning by the Universal Health Care Foundation as a way of expanding heath insurance access, while also controlling costs through care coordination, chronic disease management, the use of electronic records and considering a delivery system that goes beyond a fee-for-service model.

Let’s hope it works, or at least provides a proving ground for the best ideas that are out there.

More information at the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut >

Tags: health care, policy reform, sustainable business