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I'm Mark Sudall. Welcome back to Power and Politics. Joining me now is John Driscoll, chair of UConn Health. Welcome to you. Thank you, Mark. Well, uh, UConn Health certainly, uh, this has been the talk of the news lately, uh, planning a bid to acquire Waterbury Hospital is part of a larger, uh, plan to build a network of community hospitals. Where does. Stand and how important would this be? I think it could be transformational. I mean we're creating a joint venture that would include potentially a number of hospitals. The first step is to step in and save Waterbury, but Waterbury has been, has been really hollowed out by outside. Investors and yet you know it's a it's the 5th largest city in the state. Waterbury Hospital does a terrific job and we believe with our help we can help turn it around and lay the foundation of a competitive system and in the state that could potentially deliver more care at a fairer cost than some of the other systems out there and that's that's what we intend to do so. Where would that money come from though to in order to to bid and purchase it? Well, no, the, the, we've we've had a bipartisan legislative support, uh, led by the governor to save Waterbury Hospital. I mean the, the, the state would have to give us lend us the money effectively we are lending with the state's backing. Uh, nearly $400 million to purchase Waterbury, uh, or to create the foundational investment in with with this network of Waterbury and potentially two other hospitals and with that money, um, we think we can turn them around and create. Make them cash flow positive within 5 years. Uh, the alternative is to let this hospital, uh, frankly go out of business, which is an unacceptable alternative for, uh, you know, the foundational hospital in the 5th largest city in the state. And it's been in business for about 100 years. I think it's been in business since 1890. It's just looking at the walls in Waterbury and you look at some of these buildings, uh, but more importantly, it serves a critical purpose in terms of emergency stuff, but in terms of cardiac care, uh, in terms of COPD, all of the long time chronic conditions that and frankly public health needs of Waterbury, it is a critical asset and frankly if it wasn't UConn in the state stepping in. Uh, there was really no other alternative, so, uh, we think we can create a great alternative, um, but we were, I think the last choice in the line to kind of, to, to kind of invest and save Waterbury. Now you mentioned two other hospitals you're also looking at, uh, talk about those and any others beyond that you'd be looking at too. I, I think we're really we're, we're thinking about Bristol and De Kimball as well to see whether we can make the same case and put ourselves in the position. Both of them are very fragile right now and having a hard time surviving on their own. Um, just contextually, health care, um, hospitals, doctors, uh, the economics get better and the administrative costs get lower with scale when you're a little bit bigger. So to some degree we've had a lot of decently performing hospitals, but they haven't had the scale to really compete with the larger systems like a Hartford or a Yale and we believe we can create a network that will improve the care in those communities and also. Turn those those hospitals around so that we are actually the profitable and cash flow positive but also fulfilling the public health needs of of communities that Day Kimball, Bristol and other hospitals serve. Yes, so you think long term is that the goal of Yukon Health to to touch every corner of the state possibly or necessarily every corner of the state, Mark. We want to be investing and collaborating where we can be relevant and frankly it's not always gonna be us taking over a hospital. Or creating taking over the hospital and putting it in that network, we're going to look to collaborate with other systems as well where it makes sense. We're going to invest and support where we think the state needs that, but we're going to collaborate and work with others. We think we think of UConn as a state asset and so we don't want to just be, it's not just a control thing we actually want to be a terrific public health servant and I think we can create, we've already created a high quality health system. Uh, that is one of the lowest cost systems in the state. We want to create, create more alternatives for employers and patients to be able to take advantage of that care. Now, years ago, of course, remember, uh, how banks were taking each other over. Now over the last decade or so it's been healthcare systems we've seen it like you said with Harford Healthcare, Yale New Haven, um. Is this kind of the the wave of the future and when does it get uh like too competitive and how does it affect all the systems? Actually, Mark, competition is good. What's interesting we've seen if if there's just one or two dominant systems, you can have a duopoly or a monopoly, and what happens is that hospitals stop competing on cost, monopoly systems, large systems controlled neighborhoods, typically healthcare costs are 12% higher. And frankly, cardiac outcomes after a heart attack or after cardiac care are actually worse. Emergency room performance is worse when you've got healthy competition between systems, the costs are lower and the care is better. So we want to make sure we can deliver on that, particularly since we are a high quality low cost system at UConn, where we can create that foundation and you know put a little healthy competition and we've got some great systems in the state. Hartford's a phenomenal high quality system. Yale has got a great academic background, but we think there's room for another system, and the math would suggest, and other states would suggest experience would suggest that it's healthy for patients and it's healthy for employers and costs. Well, let's talk about costs, healthcare costs, as you know, are through the roof. How is UConn Health dealing with that? Well, we're trying to, we, we start from a better position than a lot of others. But let's be honest, with $140 billion being cut out of Medicaid over the next 10 years and the elimination of the ACA subsidies, healthcare costs are going to go up. So I think that makes it even more important for UConn and other low cost, high quality systems to come together to provide more alternatives for patients and employers. We can't break the health care cost curve in this environment, but we can certainly bend it in the right direction. Yeah, John, thank you so much for the time. Delighted to be here. Well, next, the race for Stratford mayor is heating up the latest developments coming up.

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Early voting started across the state earlier this week. It runs until November 2nd, 2 days before Election Day. Most polling places will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. There are also 4 additional hours of voting offered on Tuesday, October 28th and Thursday, October 30th when polls are open from 8:00 a.m. to 8 p.m. Your location for early voting. May be different than your regular polling place, so you should double check with your town or city. We also have a link for you with more information at news twelve.com. If someone is not registered to vote, they can register on site. This is the 2nd year early voting is available in Connecticut. More than 740,000 people voted early last year. We did it last year with over 40% of our voters using early voting. So everything is exactly the same, except some towns have added additional locations, uh, so check our website at the Secretary of the State or your town's website to make sure you have the right location. And Stephanie Thomas, who you just saw there, will join me next week on Power and Politics to talk about the success of early voting and what else to expect on election day. There are races for mayor this year in Norwalk, Stanford, Stratford, and Milford. While in the mayor's race in Stratford, 3 major unions have formally endorsed the Democratic challenger, Doctor David Chess. Police, firefighters, and teamsters made the announcement in a joint statement. Union leaders cite a breakdown of trust and low morale under Mayor Laura Hoyt's administration. Mayor Hoyic has failed to lead and Stratford is paying the price. We need leadership that listens and respects the work of those who protect this town every day. Doctor David Chess is that leader. He understands that safe neighborhoods depend on supporting the people who keep them that way. He listens, he respects our work, and he believes that strong unions make for a stronger Stratford. Now Hoy, a Republican, is running for re-election. She's been the mayor of Stratford since 2017. Well, that's all our time. I'm Mark Sudall. Thanks for watching.

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Gov. Ned Lamont and John Driscoll join the show.

Power & Politics: 1:1 with Gov. Lamont; UConn Health chief on bids to buy hospitals

Gov. Ned Lamont and John Driscoll join the show.

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