Connecticut: Ned Lamont jumps on board the Reinsurance Express

The Reinsurance Train keeps chugging along.

In 2017, three states established their own ACA market reinsurance program utilizing the ACA's Section 1332 State Innovation Waiver provision to keep unsubsidized premiums from spiraling out of control in 2018 and beyond: Alaska, Minnesota and Oregon.

In 2018, more states passed and secured approval for reinsurance programs to cut down rates in 2019: Maryland, New Jersey, Maine and Wisconsin.

...and now, there are even more states (or at least gubernatorial candidates) considering or at pushing hard for reinsurance programs to cut rates down in 2020: Montana, North Dakota, Virginia, Washington State and Michigan...

...and now Connecticut. where Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ned Lamont is also, like Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, pushing hard for CT to establish a reinsurance program there as well:

HARTFORD, CT — Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ned Lamont has much lower expectations for what he’s going to be able to do to improve the health of Connecticut residents than one might expect from a Democratic candidate this year.

Sounds like Lamont would not push for CT to reinstate the ACA individual mandate penalty:

...Does he believe everyone in Connecticut has to purchase health insurance now that it’s not mandated by the federal government?

“I don’t right now,” Lamont said. “And I’ll tell you why, because I just don’t know if the subsidies and protections for people to make it affordable for them are going to be coming out of this Trump administration. So until we know what those subsidies are, until we know what it would cost people, I think I’m gonna have to wait on that.”

State Comptroller Kevin Lembo said he also opposes an individual mandate at the moment because “affordability is a question and the quality of plans is a question.”

He said once the state can make those plans affordable then it can ask everyone to purchase insurance, “but I don’t think we’re there yet.”

Here's the reinsurance part:

He said he also wants to take advantage of the reinsurance program offered by the federal government. He said states that have taken advantage of it have reduced premiums. He wants to reduce premiums 20 percent.