When he was a candidate, Gov. Dannel Malloy loved the idea of health care reform in Connecticut.
Create a system (called SustiNet) by which the state, and anyone who wanted to participate, could buy health insurance in bulk -- at deep, deep discounts.
That, he said, was a great idea, and it was an idea that helped him beat Democratic rival Ned Lamont.
Then, when he became governor by the slightest of margins, beating Republican Tom Foley with the aid of Bridgeport, whose voters, many impoverished, would most benefit from a transformational health care system, Malloy changed his mind. Why?
Because powerful business interests, led by the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, pressured him into abandoning the very people who voted for him.
With sham studies and faulty analyses, they gave the governor political cover by saying SustiNet would be too risky and too expensive, even though buying insurance in bulk is the very definition of cheap and stable coverage.
It's a damn shame.
This, combined with his reluctance to raise taxes on the wealthy and his insistance that public-sector workers conceded billions and billions, lends credence to the idea that perhaps Malloy isn't really a liberal at all.
Sure, he wants to invest in infrastructure, but conservatives, at least historically, have supported that, too. No, what appears to be happening, as time goes on, is that the governor is showing his stripes. He might actually be a conservative who says all the right lefty-sounding things. What you might call a Clintonian neoliberal who's very friendly to business. We know at least one business titan and arch-conservative, David Koch, the same billionaire who funded the Tea Party's ascendence last year, absolutely loves his new budget proposal.
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