Hartford Business Journal

www.HartfordBusiness.com • October 5, 2020 • Hartford Business Journal 29 2020 POWER 25 — HEALTH CARE pin previously held legislative jobs at the Capitol and Stover was once an executive assistant to the president of the Connecticut AFL-CIO. As major employers, health insurers wield significant power in the halls of the state Capitol. For example, in 2019 insurers report- edly helped kill a "public option" bill that aimed to save small businesses money by allowing them to enroll in the state's health plan. Kevin Lembo and Victoria Veltri Connecticut is known for having ac- tivists keen on expanding access to and reducing the costs of health care. Many of them are found within state govern- ment, including Comptroller Kevin Lembo and Office of Health Strategy Executive Director Victoria Veltri. Lembo, the state's former health- care advocate and Demo- cratic gubernatorial candidate, is in charge of administering public employee health plans and has been on the cutting edge of new payment models with insurers. Most notably, earlier this year he selected Anthem to administer a self-insured health plan that covers 210,000 state employees, retirees and their depen- dents as part of a new initiative that gives state officials a seat at the bargaining table when in- surance carriers and healthcare providers hash out a complicat- ed set of reim- bursement ar- rangements, to ensure they are directly linked to quality care and efficiency. He's also been on the forefront of advocating for a public health plan in the state. Veltri was appointed the first head of the Office of Health Strategy when it debuted in 2018. Under her leadership the office has launched a healthcare quality scorecard and cost estimator tool to help consum- ers compare the quality and cost of health care in Connecticut; incorpo- rated the first cost caps for hospital and hospital system mergers and acquisitions to contain healthcare price growth; and begun develop- ment of a healthcare affordability standard in the state. Andrew Mais The Connecticut Insurance Department was once considered a rubber stamp for the health in- surance industry. Carriers would put forward proposed rate hikes — sometimes major double-digit increases — and the insurance de- partment would approve them. That rarely happens these days. More often than not insurers are now seeing their initial rate requests pared back as they get closer inspec- tion from the insurance commissioner in response to public outcry from the escalating cost of health care. Andrew Mais is the man currently in charge of the office, and he wielded his regula- tory power in September when he pared back insurers' aver- age 2021 rate requests for the small group market (from 11.28% to 4.1%) and the individ- ual market (from 6.29% to 0.1%). Mais has an extensive pri- vate and public sector background. Previously, he was a member of De- loitte's Center for Financial Services, where he served as a subject-matter specialist and resource on insur- ance regulation. Prior to that, he was a director at the New York State Insurance Department. Eric Galvin Connecticut is chock full of insur- ers with a national or even global presence, but not many write busi- 20 19 Kevin Lembo, Comptroller, State of Connecticut Andrew Mais, Commissioner, Connecticut Insurance Department Victoria Veltri, Executive Director, Office of Health Strategy Better health for your members, made easy. Good health starts with good decisions. FirstLine Benefits™ works with you to simplify these healthy choices for your members. Purposeful OTC and healthy food programs and FirstLine Ready Sets™ packed with proactive tools make it easy to add benefits they'll love to your existing health plan. Let's enhance your plan. FirstLineBenefits.com 1-952-205-1083

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