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Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut President Frances Padilla at WNHH FM.
It turned out that universal health care couldn’t come to the Insurance State overnight.
It also turned out that hard work, year in and year out, could get the state closer.
Frances Padilla arrived at that conclusion in the process of helping to lead the fight.
Padilla offered that assessment as she prepares to retire at the end of the month from the nonprofit Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut. She worked there 18 years, the past 14 as the foundation’s leader, capping a 42-year career in local philanthropy.
The foundation began with $40 million in proceeds from a negotiated settlement connected to public approval of the merger of the insurance companies Anthem and Blue Cross.
UHCF began with a mission of pushing for affordable, accessible, quality health care for everyone in the state.
“We wanted it all, fast,” Padilla recalled Thursday in an interview on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program.
The organization organized grassroots groups statewide and lobbied legislators to pass a public insurance program called SustiNet that would cover everyone in the state. They made progress, but ultimately the measure failed to pass.
Around the same time, President Barack Obama proposed a more modest version of a plan to expand health care coverage called the Affordable Care Act. UHCF participated in efforts to support that plan and make sure Connecticut established a strong insurance exchange under the law. The law passed. And the state’s Access Health exchange emerged as a model nationwide among its peers for running well. Tens of thousands of people obtained health insurance as a result.
But not everyone. The exchange included just private companies. Policies remained out of reach for many people who earned just a bit too much to qualify for Medicaid.
Still, Padilla observed, progress was being made, incrementally. Medicaid expanded. UHCF has teamed up with not just other health care activists but housing and immigrant-rights groups to seek to make more progress on what UHCF was coming to see as a broader, interrelated social-justice agenda.
“The last two years have been a turning point” in expanding access to the state HUSKY Medicaid program for all immigrants, regardless of their status, Padilla said.
More points await turning, as the fight for broader, affordable, and equitable quality health care continues. UHCF is still pushing for a “public option” in Connecticut offering a government-run alternative to subsidized private plans. UHCF is also part of a nationwide coalition seeking a national Medicare for All-style single payer plan, which as the state of Vermont discovered, requires a pool far bigger than one state to keep costs down.
Though she will no longer serve as president of UHCF, Padilla plans to remain part of the quest for a fairer society, whether potentially in a new paid job or through her volunteer civic efforts. Rather than officially “retiring,” she said, “I’m thinking of it ‘rewiring.’”
Click on the video to watch the full interview with Frances Padilla on “Dateline New Haven.”
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Thank you Frances for your many years of service to New Haven and the State of Connecticut , enjoy the phase of your life.
Frank Alvarado