State Officials Worry About Budgetary Impacts of Trump’s ‘Concepts of a Plan’

By Hugh McQuaid

December 13 @ 4:00 pm

State budget officials said Monday they were bracing for the possibility that Connecticut’s fiscal stability could be disrupted by reductions in federal health care funding from the incoming Trump administration.

During his first term in office, President-elect Donald Trump unsuccessfully sought to repeal the Affordable Care Act and has been vague about his health care policy intentions since last month’s election.

However, according to KFF, a nonprofit policy organization formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation, recent proposals from legislative Republicans and Project 2025 have included limitations on federal Medicaid spending and the elimination of expanded marketplace subsidies under the ACA.

The potential for a reduction in federal support was on the minds of state officials during a Monday hearing to review a new report on Connecticut’s finances. Sen. Saud Anwar, Senate chair of the legislature’s Public Health Committee, asked the governor’s budget chief if the administration had developed a contingency plan for Medicaid cuts under Trump.

“We’re going to assume that they will honor the current law,” Jeffrey Beckham, secretary of the Office of Policy and Management, answered. “If there are changes at the federal level in terms of what they’re prepared to reimburse us for, that’s obviously something we’ll all have to contend with. I’m not interested in getting less from them, but we’ll see what they say.”

Beckham said the Lamont administration was in the process of crafting a state budget proposal for the next two years and was monitoring the situation in Washington D.C. for indications that federal support may be reduced

“We have resources in Washington,” he told the joint hearing of the Appropriations and Finance Committees. “We have at least one operative and others that we work with. We’re actively trying to get that information. The governor’s made a request that we get as much intel as we can and early warning as we can as to what we might have to contend with.”

Anwar, a practicing medical doctor, stressed that Connecticut policymakers had a “social responsibility” to address community needs in addition to their fiscal responsibility to pass a state budget in the coming year.

As recently as this week, Trump has resisted media efforts to shed light on his health care plans. In a Sunday interview on “Meet the Press,” Trump told NBC’s Kristen Welker that he had “concepts of a plan” for health care.

“We have the biggest health care companies looking at it,” Trump told Welker. “We have doctors who are always looking. Because Obamacare stinks, it’s lousy.”

On Monday, Beckham told state legislators that he expected to have a better idea how the Trump administration’s plans may impact Connecticut’s budget in 2026.

“By the time we get to the ‘26 session, we may have to make — we may have to have some complicated conversations,” Beckham said.