Employees at Bloomfield Health Care Center took their voices to the street Monday and let management know they mean business when it comes to wages, benefits, and negotiations.

The 120-bed skilled nursing facility on Park Avenue in Bloomfield voted 68-42 in favor of union representation in 2006. It's been a month and a half since the National Labor Relations Board certified the results of that election. Workers said Monday that Bloomfield Health Care Center has ignored the union's effort to schedule negotiations.

Bloomfield Health Care Center's administrator Steve Barrett said he would email a statement by the end of the business day, but as of 9:39 p.m. no statement had arrived.

The debate on universal health care was postponed last year because the 2007 General Assembly wanted to study the issue before passing legislation like its neighboring states.

In the absence of a major statewide policy on access to affordable health care, the 2008 General Assembly did pass five smaller health care bills being praised by health care advocates.

With only a few days left in the session, the General Assembly was able to approve all five bills:

-A bill to establish a new Health Equity Commission, whose mission will be to eliminate disparities in the health status of minorities;

-A bill to expand a pilot program, known as Money Follows the Person, designed to help transition people from nursing homes to less restrictive community settings;

-A bill amending the Medicaid program to include hospice services for low income people who are terminally ill;

-A mental health bill that eliminates the requirement for a three-day stay in an acute care hospital setting before an insurance plan will allow coverage of medically necessary psychological services in a residential facility, and;

-A bill opening the state employee health insurance pool to municipal, nonprofit, and small business employees.

The state Senate debated Majority Leader Chris Donovan's Connecticut Health Care Partnership bill that would allow municipalities, nonprofits and small businesses to join the state employees health insurance plan into the early morning hours Wednesday.

The bill finally passed 22 to 12 along a mostly party line vote around 2 a.m.

Republicans tried to introduce their budget amendment twice to the bill, but were unsuccessful. Instead they continued with a flurry of amendments to the underlying bill, which the Governor's Budget Secretary has said could cost the state $54 million in health care savings in fiscal year 2009.

The House passed a bill along party lines that calls for mental illness to be treated the same as physical illness under Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell's Charter Oak Health Plan for uninsured adults in the state. The Charter Oak Health Plan was passed last year by the legislature and is expected to be offered July 1 to any uninsured resident in the state.

The bill, which Rell has promised to veto, passed by a vote of 104 to 44, but only after Republican lawmakers made their first attempt to attach their budget proposal to it.

As with environmental initiatives, movement toward universal health care is coming from the states. That was demonstrated again on Saturday with a regional action summit called Latino Voices in Universal Health Care.

The Latino community is the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population and has the highest percentage of uninsured and underinsured people. That's true in Connecticut as well. The latest census figures show that Latinos are ten percent of the state population but 40 percent of the uninsured.

Click here to continue reading Melinda's report.

When Heather Greene's 8-year-old daughter Hope developed a rash earlier this month she took her to a pediatrician, but the pediatrician was unable to diagnose the rash and recommended a dermatologist. Getting an appointment with a dermatologist is not easy when your daughter is covered by the state's HUSKY insurance program, Greene said.

After several phone calls, Greene said she turned to legal aid and the Department of Social Services in search of an out-of-network dermatologist. Finally on April 17, after more than two weeks of itching and agony, Hope was able to see a dermatologist.

Greene said while she was able to resolve the problem this time she wonders what will happen when the Department of Social Services awards the five-year, $3.5 billion HUSKY contract to possibly three managed care organizations, two of which have no provider networks in the state.

After more than four hours of debate Wednesday night a bill that allows municipal employees, small businesses, and nonprofits join the state employees health insurance plan passed the House on a largely party-line vote.

The overall bill passed 102-43, but an amendment which included the main provisions of the bill passed with only one Democrat, Rep. Linda Schofield of Simsbury, voting against it. The bill now heads to the Senate.

"This makes the few hairs I have left on my head hurt," Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero, R-Norwalk, said in the middle of the debate Wednesday. He said he's concerned that if certain people come into the insurance pool they may drive up costs.

Majority Leader Chris Donovan, D-Meriden, said Wednesday morning that the first bill the House will debate today is one he's championed for the past two years. The bill, known as The Connecticut Health Care Partnership, will allow municipal employees, nonprofits, and small businesses to buy into the state employees health insurance plan.

Donovan said this will save the municipalities, nonprofits, and small businesses money on health insurance because the risk is spread over more than 100,000 individuals already in the state employee insurance pool. Asked about opposition to the bill, Donovan sidestepped the question saying that he's heard from people around the state that "it seems like a no-brainer," and, "Why haven't we done this before?"

Donovan neglected to mention a letter written earlier this week by Office of Policy and Management Secretary Robert Genuario, which states that at least two of the three insurers participating in the state employee health insurance program would have to re-rate their bids immediately if the bill is passed. Genuario also said that "additional resources would have to be budgeted if the bill passes."

An NAACP study that looked at the prevalence of health conditions amongst African Americans found they lead the state in chronic illnesses like diabetes and asthma, are more likely to be uninsured, and are more likely to die from breast cancer even though they're less likely to get it.

James Rawlings, chair of the NAACP health committee, said the study "is the first time a report has been done by those who have been impacted by it." He said for years the African American community has been seeing the symptoms of disparities in the health care system, but have never had any data to back it up, until now.

This is why the Interfaith Fellowship for Universal Health Care and the NAACP were at the Capitol Thursday to advocate for the creation of an Office of Minority Health. Click here for the New Haven Independent story on this same topic.

A sea of people wearing orange, purple, and green union t-shirts stood behind House Majority Leader Chris Donovan, D-Meriden, Wednesday, and offered their support for a bill that lets municipalities, nonprofits, and small businesses join the state employees health insurance pool.

"When it comes to health care we shouldn't have differences," Donovan said. He said this bill, which passed through its third committee vote Wednesday, is about having a good health care plan that's affordable.