A costly bill requiring small businesses to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket medical claims died with the June 4 close of the legislative session.
SB 11 placed mandates on self-funded health plans, significantly increasing the amount of medical risk faced by small businesses using those types of plans.
The bill included a provision that increased attachment points—or the monetary amount of medical risk that employers are liable for—to $250,000.
The legislation also created mandates for stop-loss coverage used in conjunction with self-funded health plans.
The bill was referred from the Senate floor to the Finance, Revenue, and Bonding Committee three weeks before the end of the legislative session.
The committee chose to take no further action during its May 27 meeting, thus “killing” the bill by not returning to the Senate floor for a vote.
‘Death Spiral’
Earlier in the session, CBIA’s Grace Brangwynne told the Human Services Committee that “SB 11 would force employers to prepare to pay hundreds of thousands dollars more for their current coverage, withdrawing benefits completely, or returning to the costly fully-insured market and losing control over reducing the cost of care.”
She also emphasized that the proposal would increase costs by “at least 20%” for small employers with under 50 employees.
CBIA president and CEO Chris DiPentima recently told the Hartford Business Journal that SB 11 would “drive a behavior that will continue this ‘death spiral,’ where fewer and fewer businesses will offer health insurance.”
SB 11, SB 10, and SB 7 were the three main bills that included onerous stop-loss and attachment point regulations during the 2025 legislative session.
Lobbying efforts to remove those regulations in SB 10 and SB 7 were successful, and they were passed into law without such language.
For more information, contact CBIA’s Grace Brangwynne (860.244.1163).
