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"You may have seen the TV spot featuring a young lady from our home town of Shelton explaining how her toddler son has had 14 surgeries in his fight for life, and how cuts to state hospitals by Governor Dan Malloy are jeopardizing the healthcare her son and countless others receive from our state’s providers," Perillo said in a statement.
The fired-up representative says he can tell residents that the commercial is true, along with numerous others due to the latest round of cuts to state hospitals.
"Since taking office, Gov. Malloy has taken $1.3 billion from our state’s hospitals – both through cuts, and through increased taxes, which single out hospitals for unique abuse. Our state’s hospitals have fallen prey to the governor and his accomplices in the state legislature because their fiscal mismanagement of state finances,” Perillo said.
The state currently takes $566 million per year from the hospitals, Perillo said.
The tax on hospitals, when it was first introduced, was levied with the pledge that federal matching funds would be received by the state and distributed back to these hospitals. But Perillo said that pledge was quickly broken as the tax funds were retained by the state to close budget gaps.
Some of the repercussions from the cuts include longer patient wait times and the risk of restricted access, as well as the loss of healthcare jobs, the state representative said.
A recent study from the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis found that the state would benefit financially if it did not tax the hospitals. This report finds that the state leaves $373 million in federal funds on the table by keeping more of the hospital tax that it distributes.
The Connecticut Hospital Association, which commissioned the study, is poised for a legal challenge to the excessive taxes on hospitals on the grounds that they are unconstitutional. They have asked for a declaratory ruling from the state Department of Revenue Services and Department of Social Services about the constitutionality of the tax under the Equal Protection clause and other provisions.
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