Compassionate Care Human Services Public Hearing Transcript

PRESIDING CHAIRMEN: Senator Harris

Representative Villano

COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT:

SENATORS: Coleman, Kissel

REPRESENTATIVES: Abercrombie, Gibbons, Adinolfi, Bartlett, Burns, Butler, Caron, Chapin, Jarmoc, Morris, Orange, Schofield, Thompson, Truglia, Walker

REPRESENTATIVE VILLANO: By our Committee rules, I am required to open a meeting within ten minutes of the designated hour. It is now ten after and this public hearing is open.

However, we seem to be lacking some Committee Members, but nevertheless, I think we will get started because we have a full agenda and many speakers here.

I warn some of you though that the Capitol Police might be in later to indicate that some of you have to go to an overflow room. It might require no standing be in effect, but we will be guided by what the Capitol Police say. So I think we will get started.

My Co-Chair Senator Harris will be here very shortly. My key members are here so we can do business without them. Under our rules, we hear first from people who have signed up as legislators or agency people or other public officials.

We ask all speakers in the interest of those who come behind you to be brief. We have your prepared statement, and we ask that you summarize and keep your comments as brief as possible because after you are finished, you're going to get questions or comments from Committee Members.

After we are through with the public officials, we turn to the public and will hear everyone there, in turn, as well. One other announcement I have to make is that turn off all cell phones during the hearing, or if you need to use it, please step outside.

I will turn to the agenda now of speakers and call, our first speaker will be Nancy Wyman, our State Controller.

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: Thank you, Representative Villano. Good morning to the distinguished Members of the Human Services Committee.

For the record, I am State Comptroller Nancy Wyman. I appreciate the opportunity to testify in support of Raised Senate Bill 1343, AN ACT CONCERNING COMPASSIONATE CARE FOR VICTIMS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT.

Senate Bill 1343 states that any healthcare facility that is a participating provider of services under any of the state's medical assistance programs will be required to provide information on emergency contraception, as well as honor all requests from sexual assault victims for the dispensing of such medication.

Sexual assault victims need prompt medical attention. I believe it is vital, and I repeat vital, vitally important that all legal prescriptions are available when a patient needs them.

Emergency contraception is intended to prevent a pregnancy. The chance of a pregnancy resulting from a sexual assault can be greatly reduced by Plan B if administered to a victim within the first 24 hours following the assault.

Female victims of sexual assault should be treated with compassion during a time of trauma and pain. Plan B is available over the counter to adults.

But we should ensure that every woman or girl knows that she can avoid the trauma of a pregnancy resulting from sexual assault and that it will be provided upon request.

My office, with the assistance of Attorney General Blumenthal, worked with Wal-Mart to make sure that Plan B would be available to women in Connecticut when it was indicated that they did not intend on stocking Plan B emergency contraception.

I felt strongly that Wal-Mart, as a participant in the state's insurance network, could not selectively choose which drugs to provide.

I believe that if the arbitrary selection of what drugs to be honored continued, the state would have no choice but to explore options to have Wal-Mart removed from the state network.

I am pleased that Wal-Mart recognized their responsibilities and worked with our office on an acceptable contingency plan even in instances of conscientious objection by an employed pharmacist. A workable solution can and needs to be found.

Our first priority, as elected officials, should always be to ensure that its participating providers make available necessary and appropriate treatment and services to all of our residents.

I want to close by saying a girl or a woman, who is raped, is made a victim by someone who decided what they wanted to do with her body. Let's not make her a victim.

Allow her to choose what she needs by telling her what is available to her and providing it if she requests it. Let's not keep her victim. Let's try to make her a survivor. Thank you very, very much for your time, and I hope that you will vote this bill out.

REP. VILLANO: Are there any comments or questions from Committee Members? Representative Thompson.

REP. THOMPSON: Good afternoon, Ma'am.

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: Good afternoon.

REP. THOMPSON: This issue came up a year ago, I believe, and at the time the debate about it concerned the Catholic hospitals in the state and their refusal to provide the pill.

Are you aware of any Catholic hospital that has actually denied the medication to any rape victim?

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: I gather that some of the Catholic hospitals now have developed a test to put this victim through again to see if the victim at the time she didn't choose to be raped, was raped, was ovulating. And then, if she is ovulating, as I understand, they do not give them the pill.

REP. THOMPSON: That's a test, but are you aware of anyone who was denied the pill on that basis?

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: What I understand through the, and I was not there, and I don't know. I do not have the names of the people who have gone in there. What I do understand from sexual assault counselors, we just heard at a press conference that they do know.

And I am sure they will be testifying in front of you they do know of people that have been refused the pill and treatment and the information that the victims need to make that choice.

REP. THOMPSON: Well, as a result of the controversy last year, two things happened to me. One is that in a political debate during the campaign, someone made the same claim you made.

And I responded that I think the Archdiocese in this case had made an error, and I did not agree with it. And, I requested further information as to other legislators.

The four Catholic hospitals did do a survey, and I'll give you the results of that, okay? The survey summary, the four hospitals. I won't repeat their names, but the survey was back to January 1, 2006 and went to July, September, October and again July.

The number of rape victims treated in the emergency room total victims 73, walk-ins 46, arrival by ambulance 27. How many were denied Plan B on pregnancy ovulation testing protocol? Zero. No one was denied the pill. How many were provided Plan B based on protocol? Total 26.

How many did not receive Plan B due to other factors, that is, they refused treatment on birth control, post-menopausal, five days post assault, tubal ligation, sodomized, no evidence of rape, penetration with an object, youthful age of victim and so on, it was 47.

How many were assigned by rape crisis counselors from outside agencies at the hospital? The patient must agree to such service. Total 24. Additional patients were provided follow-up, referrals or other support information.

It seems to me that importance was given to protocol. And then we get into what we may consider a conflict of church-state. Is that part of your testimony?

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: No, Representative, it is not. If to me you're, and I am sure the numbers that you have in front of you are accurate, then I guess nobody would be fighting this procedure and giving out the contraceptive.

REP. THOMPSON: That's what I think, too.

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: Excuse me?

REP. THOMPSON: That's what I think, too.

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: I would think if they were doing this, why would they fight the bill? And there is a fight against the bill right now.

To be honest with you, I can only listen to the people that are there all the time with the victims and how the counselors have said that they have seen and been at Catholic hospitals that the pill has not been given to them.

And I'm not going to dispute your numbers Representative, but you do a great job on looking back on the information and stuff, but what I do want to make sure is that the women that are victims have the opportunity and the knowledge of what they can and cannot do at a time right after a terrible incident.

We just heard about one of, and I'm sure she will be here later, of a colleague of yours who went through something terrible. And--

REP. THOMPSON: In a Catholic hospital?

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: I'm sorry?

REP. THOMPSON: In a Catholic hospital?

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: No, just talking about being a rape victim, and being a rape victim at the time that you go to the hospital. What you feel like, what happens to that woman.

That's why I say to you that it is so important to get these people to be survivors and not just victims any more. That we have to help them go through and let them have the information they need.

If they choose not to take Plan B, then that's their choice, but at least to have them have the opportunity and knowledge about it and have it available and not to go to having to be told to go some place right after their bodies might have been mutilated in many ways and their minds destroyed.

REP. THOMPSON: What I am suggesting, Nancy, is that when I heard information such as you just revealed, yes, of course, we are very sympathetic.

And there's no question about the, and I just couldn't imagine healthcare providers being less than compassionate to the victim of a rape, and I even had the thought that supposing, you know, a young woman comes in that has been beaten and asks for the, I cannot imagine anyone not being compassionate and doing something about it.

I think the question though is the hospitals are willing to provide that pill except as you mention in the question of the ovulation, and I think there's a medical doctor who will later testify in support of the Bill, will go through that.

But it seemed to me that the issues that divide us are rather small. The issues that bring us together, not only for victims of rape but victims of poverty and victims of a lot of other injustices in our society, have much more in common than they do.

To have something like this, to single out a religious institution and not give them a greater, a greater opportunity to explain their position just seems to me to be wasting our time. And I would hope that they would come together and you might help us to bring those two sides together.

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: And, I will tell you Representative Thompson this was not against the Catholic hospitals as far as I have seen it.

I mean, as far as my opinion is, because they do a great job in our state. They service a lot of our people and do a great job at the hospital.

I think if you listened to my testimony, it wasn't the religious aspect of this thing because we went after Wal-Mart. And, we came up with an agreement with some Wal-Marts.

They sat down with us. It didn't have to be a lawsuit or anything else. We sat down and discussed it, and they did have people that objected to giving out the pill so they worked out a program that they would have somebody available so that the person that comes to the counter gets the pill that they need.

I think we should be able to work things out. I would hope that we can. You know, I always think that less legislation is better legislation if we can work the problem out. If we're not working the problem out, then I think we have to work to help these victims out.

REP. THOMPSON: Thank you. And just for future speakers, if anyone has any information about a person that has been denied the pill at any hospital, I for one would like to know the hospital that refused the pill and the reason for giving it.

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: I think there are people coming after me that will be able to do that.

REP. THOMPSON: Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you, Representative Thompson. Are there any questions or comments of Controller Wyman? Representative Morris?

REP. MORRIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to make sure I'm clear with my understanding. You're fine with this as long as you know that the victim has been given knowledge of their options and a mechanism is somehow in place that will allow that person to receive the pill. And I'm really hearing this towards the Catholic hospitals.

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: Representative Morris, my belief is that if a sexually assaulted woman comes into any hospital and that is told about the emergency contraceptive, that if she chooses that she would like to have a contraceptive today, that it should be handed to her.

Not put in a cab and sent miles away because that's not what we do. You don't do that for aspirins. You don't do that for a painkiller. And, these people are hurting. You know, what, this incident happened for this victim. She didn't ask for it.

She didn't want to be there, and you better give her every opportunity to take care of herself afterwards since this happened, since she became a victim.

REP. MORRIS: Good. On that point, every opportunity. Okay. And I'm clear with you. I have heard the arguments about going to another hospital or things like that and certainly for a victim of this horrendous, horrendous crime, this violation on a woman.

I think everyone in this room is on the page that we need to make certain that we are providing relief and certainly the options to make a choice to take the pill or not. So, at least we know our positions on that.

I'm just trying to be clear when you say providing opportunities if there were, and I'm kind of following upon Representative Thompson, if the option was one that if it were a Catholic hospital that for whatever religious reasons they didn't want to be dispensing, but where a sexual assault crisis counselor or someone like that would be something that would make sense to you and be favorable?

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: If you can find someone that is not a conscientious objector, that would come to that woman and dispense it immediately, because we have a time period here that the medication has to be delivered to the woman and that both pills would be given at the same time, so that she takes the one right away and then the other one within, I think it's within 12 hours, that if it is a seamless process where, for the victim, I have no problem with that.

REP. MORRIS: That would be a reasonable solution?

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: Absolutely, have somebody come in and give her the pill. As long she's given the pill. You're not moving the patient.

You're not taking the victim and making, giving her more problems than she already had, and it is seamless to the victim, then I don't see a problem with it as long as it is being disbursed and with the knowledge that she chose to have the pill.

REP. MORRIS: If, because the seamless piece may be where the challenge is to some degree, and I may want to hear a little more testimony on this.

Maybe that's what I'll do, but maybe people that are coming could consider that, because I agree with Representative Thompson.

Statistically, when you take a look at the numbers of who may be affected here and if the other side of the story is that some people are feeling that we need to protect state institutions and conscientious reasons, how can we today in this hearing may come up with some solutions, some ways to address the needs of all of us that really want to provide for relief of the victim but then at the same time recognize, recognize that we need also to protect state institutions. Thank you. So I'll hold that and ask other people to think of those things. We'll talk out loud.

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: Okay. Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: Are there any more questions or comments from Committee Members? All right. Yes, Representative Truglia.

REP. TRUGLIA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon. Nancy, you mentioned when you were dealing with Wal-Mart that the answer would be that if they weren't going to do what you asked that you would take state funding away from any programs that they were involved with.

Now, how would we do that with our Catholic hospitals? They provide so much of the Medicaid population.

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: Absolutely.

REP. TRUGLIA: In fact, I know in Stamford, St. Joseph's Hospital had to close because they were providing for so many patients, who are Medicaid.

Now, I wouldn't want this to happen to the four hospitals that are left. I mean how are we going to punish them? What are we going to do if they feel because of their religious beliefs that they are not able to do this?

I know I spoke to someone at Saint Vincent's because I was curious, too, you know, how many individuals. They said they have never had one complaint.

That they immediately call in their sexual assault counselor and they work together. And, they really treat everyone with compassionate care.

That's what I have always thought about Catholic hospitals. One of the reasons Catholic hospitals were started was because they wanted to provide compassionate and caring care for their patients.

So I worry about what if we pass legislation that if they do not provide, what punishment are we going to give them other than to take away Medicaid patients or patients that the state pays for? I mean, right now, they are so under-funded as it is because certainly you take care of a patient, the state does not reimburse them what it costs.

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: You are absolutely right.

REP. TRUGLIA: You know, it just, I'm trying to figure out how we're going to work this.

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: I think that, I think that as Representative Morris said and even Representative Thompson said there is some way of getting together on this. This is not, for us, it was different when it came to Wal-Mart.

Because of the state healthcare plan, we had to have everybody in the plan and they had to have everything available. Otherwise, the negotiations that went on with the state and the union were put out in the form of a settlement.

That everything had to be available to them. And when Wal-Mart was going to pull out, I didn't have much of an option but to say that we were going to pull out.

REP. TRUGLIA: I can understand that.

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: I'm really hoping that we are able to get some kind of a settlement so that not only, it's not only the Catholic hospitals, it's other places that we want to make sure that people provide that if you go some place.

This is not me attacking the Catholic hospitals by any means because as I said to you earlier, I truly believe they have done a great job in this state, in this country, to helping people out.

But on this issue, this issue, and the women that are affected by this issue has to be taken care of. And I believe that you can sit down and talk about it, but there's got to be a way that we address the problem that is in front of us right now.

REP. TRUGLIA: Well, one of my concerns is that what kind of rules are we going to have for these hospitals? And my problem is when I checked the uncompensated care that St. Vincent's is number four in the state for uncompensated care.

They take care of so many of the people who can't afford to pay. And you know, and state clients, who do not fund, like I said before, the cost.

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: Right, they don't.

REP. TRUGLIA: So it's a real, real problem that we're facing here because the Catholic hospitals, they have the belief that, you know, they think the government shouldn't--

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: And I think that, there's one of the suggestions, and I think Representative Morris is right, that if we can work out something that this is dispensed in a seamless way of maybe through your rape counselors coming in and dispensing it, that just as long as the victim is taken care of. And I think that's where we'll all gain. We have to take care of the victims of rape.

REP. TRUGLIA: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

REP. VILLANO: Are there any other questions? Representative Bartlett.

REP. BARTLETT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Nancy, for coming today. Are there not other states that have enacted legislation like this?

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: In fact there are, and the Attorney General has a list of them. There's like, I think he named off six or seven states that have put this legislation in and that have all the Catholic hospitals that do give Plan B.

REP. BARTLETT: So none of the hospitals after the state passed the legislation, none of the hospitals shut their doors, locked up and said we're not doing business, that wasn't the outcome was it?

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: That's the testimony of the Attorney General.

REP. BARTLETT: Thank you very much.

REP. VILLANO: Representative Morris.

REP. MORRIS: One last question. In your order of priorities of things in life, in law, where does discrimination against people of faith or institutions of faith rate?

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: I hate all forms of discrimination, and it would probably be my number one issue if you want to look at it.

But when you also look at discrimination, you also have to look at not only religious discrimination. We talk about racial, we talk about women, and a victim of rape can and is normally discriminated against, and we don't want that any more.

REP. MORRIS: And a very good point. And gender discrimination, where does that rate?

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: I don't like any kind. I think discrimination should be number one that we should consider.

REP. MORRIS: And would you agree then that each of these classes deserve equal protection under the law?

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: Yes, I do, and I have no problem with that. Absolutely.

REP. MORRIS: Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you very much, Nancy.

COMPTROLLER NANCY WYMAN: Thank you very much.

REP. VILLANO: Our next speaker is Speaker of the House James Amann. It's crowded, huh.

SPEAKER AMANN: Senator Harris, Representative Villano, we should have gotten a bigger room. This is quite a showing, and obviously you have some heavy issues as usual.

I am joined here by Lois Rosenwald, who is right next me, who I consider one of the experts on autism. I'm sure there are a lot of experts in this room on this issue especially, of course, many of the parents.

So I appreciate again having an opportunity to talk to you. And I come before you today to express the strong support for House Bill 7280, AN ACT CONCERNING AUTISM.

Last year I was, you know, I guess I was lucky enough to meet a group of parents in Milford, and I was quite taken by their testimony about their children.

I told them straight out that there's many issues in my 20, now going on 25 years, 17 up here, and eight home as a local, many issues that I have taken on. And autism though was one of those that you heard about a lot, but quite frankly, I didn't know anything about.

And I was quite frank with them. I said please educate me. I don't know about it. And what can I do to help. So I give all honor to the parents, certainly Lois, and of course the children and the young adults themselves who are getting me involved in this issue.

So, yeah, I supported it, but this Legislature stepped up to the plate last year, and I think really did a great job by championing a groundbreaking, two-year pilot program to provide needed services to 25 individuals with autism spectrum disorders in the New Haven County area. Today the pilot program has been extremely successful.

I would like to thank again all of you here, many of the advocates and parents that played a part in this passage, especially State Representative Cathy Abercrombie, of course, Senator Judy Freedman, who is not here in this particular roundtable, the one that also was one that got in my ear and told me why I should do it.

Again, I thank the parents. You know, I don't know how they do it. I know we're busy up here, but the parents that just work tirelessly for the well being of their children.

Autism spectrum disorders, as you know, are a group of developmental disabilities caused by unusual brain development. People with ASD tend to have problems with social and communication skills. ASDs begin during childhood and last throughout a person's life.

I was really, really. Timing's everything, right? Right here, Gary Turco, my staff, brought this up from I believe it's the Hartford Courant.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes.

SPEAKER AMANN: I hope they know I give them a little plug here today. Not for all their articles today, but this one I will, but what a great article. Okay.

As a family, we embrace autism but autism does not go away when you turn 21, and I think it's just a great promotion and it's just great to see that and the timing was spectacular.

The latest Center for Disease Control study estimates that 1 in 150 newborn babies have an autism spectrum disorder. Autism is currently the fastest-growing developmental disability.

In the 1990s, the United States population increase was 13%, disabilities as a whole increased by 16%, autism had an increase of 172%.

Those statistics are alarming so we need, as a Legislature, to continue the good work that we started last year. Autism spectrum disorders occur in all racial, ethnic, socioeconomic groups. It does not discriminate.

Presently there is no known single cause of autism. Studies are underway to explore different explanations for the various types of autism.

Recently Senator Christopher Dodd helped to obtain federal money to research a cure. And I was so proud of him for doing that.

One of the most challenging times for individuals with autism and their families is when they transition from the security of federally mandated services in the public schools to the uncertainty of adult services.

And that's where we stepped in and that's where House Bill 7280 is targeted to help the adult population. Adult spectrum disorders are life-long conditions, yet adults with autism in Connecticut we see very few services, in fact, embarrassingly very few services.

So entitlement to services, people with autism ends at the age of 21 in Connecticut unless the person also has mental retardation.

A large parentage of people with autism do not have mental retardation and therefore are left with no or very few services, but most of the time, there aren't any.

This bill, again, would require that the Commissioner of Social Services in consultation with the Commissioner of Mental Retardation take all necessary steps such as applying for Medicaid waivers to secure federal funding to provide home and community-based support services to adults with autism spectrum disorders, who do not have mental retardation.

This bill also ensures that a long-time, long-term funding of services for these individuals and the federal dollars to do so. And funding for services for these adults would allow them to live independent lives, which is so important.

By providing, by doing this, by providing post-secondary education, vocational training, supported employment, and other services they will be active and contributing members to the community. And isn't that what we want? That's our goal.

It is my hope that we will be able to appropriate funding in this year's biennium budget to start providing these services while DSS and DMR are applying and obtaining the federal funds.

I will look to all of your leadership on this Committee, Democrats and Republicans, and make sure that we, together, can appropriate and go forward and get this to be feasible for the state in passing this year's legislation.

So thank you for your time, Mr. Chairman, and consideration. At this point, would you mind if I had Lois, who has a lot more expertise, knowledge, etc. than I have to take the floor?

REP. VILLANO: We welcome her remarks.

SPEAKER AMANN: Just your name for the record, again.

LOIS ROSENWALD: Thank you, Speaker. My name is Lois Rosenwald. Senator Harris, Representative Villano and Members of the Human Services Committee, and especially Representative Abercrombie, good afternoon. I would like to thank you for the opportunity to talk on this most important issue.

My name is Lois Rosenwald, and I am here today wearing two hats. I am first and foremost the mother of a 30-year-old, who is an incredible human being, who happens to have Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism.

Secondly, I'm here as Co-Director of the Connecticut Autism Spectrum Resource Center, a grassroots, family-driven center. We have been actively advocating for over ten years to put in place services for adults with autism spectrum disorders without mental retardation.

Since I only have three minutes to speak, I'm going to choose the role of advocate, and speak to the reason why this bill needs to pass this session and not next session.

If, indeed, a Medicaid waiver is the way to go for our population, then we need to start that process as soon as possible. It takes over a year to apply for a waiver.

I have been told it is a long, arduous process. For this reason, we are recommending an outside consultant do the work.

By the time an okay is given and services are up and running, it will most likely take two years. If this bill passes this session, and they start work in July and finish by June 2008, we will be lucky to see services in place by January 2009.

This scenario depends on everything going well, and I think we all know about that. The pilot finishes in 2008. We don't have any more time to waste.

We really don't. Without the support that a waiver could provide, many of our ASD adults are on public assistance. With the appropriate services, many could be taxpayers.

I can't stress enough how severe the crisis is we are in. We needed services yesterday. Over the ten years I have been advocating for ASD adult services, we have seen the incidence of autism spectrum disorders go from three in 1,000 to the CDC's most recent number of one in 150.

This is a crisis, a serous health concern, and one that responsible government can no longer ignore. These are real people, with real families that need your help. Please do the right thing and pass this bill this Session. Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you Ms. Rosenwald--

LOIS ROSENWALD: --can I just take the opportunity to thank the Speaker? I really have to thank Jim Amann for his help. I mean, this is an issue. I've been up here for a long time. Many of you know.

You've heard me many times and spoken to me, and until he was willing to take this on, we really moved along very slowly on this issue. He has been amazing, and I really, really want to take this opportunity publicly to thank him. Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: And thank you very much. Now before both of you leave, are there any questions from Committee Members of either speaker, Mr. Amann or Ms. Rosenwald? Vice Chair Abercrombie.

REP. ABERCROMBIE: I too would like to just thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your leadership on this issue. Before I became a legislator, I was involved in Meriden with a few families for autism.

And for me when I came up here, this was something that became personal for me. And thank you so much for putting a name to a face on this issue.

I don't think there's anyone in this room that doesn't know a family that has, doesn't have autism today. And the numbers are just unbelievable and on the rise.

So I look forward to working with you, Mr. Speaker, in the future to add more services not only to our adults with autism but also to start doing something to our birth to three children also.

And to you, Lois, thank you so much for always being there to answer questions when we needed it. I really enjoyed the walk for last year, and if I am invited back this year, I will truly be there, so thank you very much for all your hard work. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

REP. VILLANO: Any other comments from Committee Members? Representative Gibbons.

REP. GIBBONS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, once again for coming before our Committee, and thank you, Lois, for being here. I've dealt with this issue for the seven years now that I've been on this Committee.

I see many parents, who have come back. It is certainly a crisis in Connecticut. I'd like to say that we all have equal votes, but I think you, Mr. Speaker, have a little more equal vote if you could be sure to get the money into our budget.

And just in case I can't support the budget, would you please put it in the Implementer so that I can support it there?

And I think we need far more money than just for 25 in a pilot program. We have hundreds of parents and adults over 21 who need these services, so let's get going and do it. Thank you both. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

REP. VILLANO: Representative Schofield. I'm sorry.

REP. SCHOFIELD: It's one of those complicated names. Thank you very much, and I really appreciate your testimony also. I think Representative Abercrombie is absolutely right in saying probably all of us know families with autism.

The need goes far beyond the 25 in the pilot program, and while it is an expense per se, I see it totally as an investment because the services you provide to kids with autism, the earlier they get them, the more functional they become and it just saves you money down the road.

To me there's nothing more important than preventing those greater expenses for these people as they grow up. I did have a quick question. Is the pilot, as it is now constructed, only for people under 21 or does it include adults as well?

LOIS ROSENWALD: It's adults and--

REP. SCHOFIELD: It's only adults?

LOIS ROSENWALD: Yes, 18 and over.

REP. SCHOFIELD: And kids are already getting those services through EPSDT presumably, or in Medicaid?

LOIS ROSENWALD: Yes.

REP. SCHOFIELD: Okay. Great.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you, Representative Schofield. Representative Truglia.

REP. TRUGLIA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I too would like to thank Speaker Amann. I was so grateful when you undertook this as one of your priorities and thank you always for coming here.

I didn't know anything about this either until about four or five years ago. Someone in Greenwich had a hearing and many of us attended. It was unbelievable what we heard, how difficult it is for parents and how wonderful these children. Some are so very bright.

I was at CVS the other day, and I heard this wonderful voice just singing away, and I went over and this little boy, maybe about 11. And I said to him, what a beautiful voice you have. And his mother turned to me and said, he's sung at Lincoln Center, but he's autistic.

But the other day, last night I think it was, I was watching the news and they now can tell some times from the moment a child is born by looking at their face, so I think there is some hope for all of you and for autism. I am so grateful to Speaker Amann because without his support I don't think we would have gone far.

We started, I think, a year before giving some monies into DMR but without Jimmy's push, and I know he's going to continue to do this as long as he is Speaker, and hopefully others will continue with his work. Thank you so much for all of your being here.

SPEAKER AMANN: Thank you, Representative, and you gave me way too much credit. Those parents would never have let me out of City Hall. Are you kidding me? I was surrounded. You give me way too much credit.

This was a, they were great advocates and they made sure that I wouldn't leave without making a commitment. They didn't want any hedging. They wanted a yes or a no.

REP. VILLANO: Representative Morris.

REP. MORRIS: If I can real quickly, I want to applaud you as well as everyone else, Mr. Speaker, for a bill that really for me is a no-brainer. But just to add to this.

My daughter, my wife, a special education aide, worked with an autistic girl from grades K-8. She's in ninth grade now. She's doing fantastic.

They thought she would have to be taken out of the school system and given alternative placement by the time she was in fourth grade. Her mom died a year ago. She has a brother, who also has autism, and I have often wondered what is going to happen to this girl when she gets out of high school.

This is a no-brainer. There are families that have this need. This is a young girl, who is doing well, has plans of getting married and everything else, so thank you for this bill. Thank you for your leadership. This is a no-brainer for me.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you. I want--

SPEAKER AMANN: May I just make one more comment?

REP. VILLANO: Yes.

SPEAKER AMANN: I want to say, Representative Adinolfi, you are a man of style and class. That is one of the nicest shirts I have ever seen in my life. We called each other up this morning. We wanted to make sure we looked good together.

REP. ADINOLFI: Thank you, Sir. I like your shirt as well.

REP. VILLANO: Our next speaker is Representative Deborah Heinrich.

REP. HEINRICH: Senator Harris, Representative Villano, distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak to you today concerning compassionate care for victims of sexual assault.

I'd like to offer you a perspective that you may not have heard from my colleagues or from advocates, the perspective of a woman who has been raped.

I'll start by telling you that it has been a very difficult decision for me whether or not to share this very traumatic and intimate part of my life with you, but I am doing so today to help you understand why offering contraception to rape victims is so very important.

At the time I was assaulted, I was not an adult. I was a straight A student. I was valedictorian of my class. I had big plans for my future. Needless to say, these plans did not include being a teenage mother.

In one fell swoop, in a moment of intense violence, that choice was taken away from me. Afterward I remember my first reaction was to get down on my hands and knees and try to collect the clumps of my hair that were ripped out as if by at least retrieving these small pieces of myself that were torn away from my body might bring back the part of my soul that was so brutally stolen from me.

I sat a long time with a pile of hair in my lap, blood pooling on the floor around me, wondering how I would possibly be able to explain this to anyone. Perhaps, I thought, I would just not tell anyone. Perhaps, if no one knew, it wouldn't really have happened.

The thought of getting medical attention required that I put my trust in someone that I did not know, in an unfamiliar setting, answering questions, being probed, being prodded, and perhaps not even being believed. It required faith and trust in other human beings that I no longer possessed.

Numbness prevented me from crying. I was paralyzed. Then slowly, the most horrifying thought passed through the fog, my God, what if I'm pregnant?

Most unfortunately, my situation was not unique nor my feelings or reactions to this intensely violent and soul-crushing experience.

A woman, who has been so violated as to wonder whether life itself will continue for her, has to move heaven and earth to find a place in herself to trust anyone enough to enter a hospital and announce that she's been raped.

She should not have to stop and wonder which hospitals will or will not offer her the highest standard of care if she has been raped.

At that time in my life, I didn't know what emergency contraception was. I never planned to be raped. Every woman in this state must be assured that when she finds that last ounce of strength, that last bit of trust that will allow her to enter the doors of a hospital, that no matter which hospital she happens to stumble into that she will be assured of having the highest standard of care and for a rape victim, that must include being offered emergency contraception.

A woman does not choose to be raped. She does not choose which hospital to go [Gap in testimony. Changing from Tape 1A to Tape 1B.]

--she often chooses the closest one. If a hospital chose not to offer me emergency contraception, I would not have known it existed.

If they offered it and told me I would have to go somewhere else to get it, I would not have had the stamina or mental capacity to do that. My body and soul were broken.

I hope that by sharing this experience with you I have helped you to understand why victims of sexual assault need to be offered and supplied emergency contraception after the intense trauma of rape.

This is about victims. It's about access to care. It's about beginning the long, slow process of healing by at minimum restoring one modicum of choice back to a woman who has had her body violated against her will, the choice not to become pregnant with her rapist's child. Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you, Deb. Thank you for coming forward, and I know how difficult it is for you to share that experience with this Committee, but we commend you for your courage and for your words of wisdom. Thanks again.

Are there comments or questions from Committee Members of Representative Heinrich? If not, thanks again for your testimony.

REP. HEINRICH: Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: It was very helpful. Secretary of State Sue Bysiewicz, to be followed by Teresa Younger of the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women.

SEC. OF STATE SUSAN BYSIEWICZ: Thank you so much, and this is the second time I've heard Representative Heinrich tell her story today, and she has just amazing courage and she has said it all in support of Senate Bill 1343.

I am here to let you know of my very strong support for access at all hospitals for women who have been raped. They all, regardless of where they go to receive care at a hospital after they have survived a rape, should have access to emergency contraceptive, emergency contraception. Excuse me.

There are several other states, including our neighboring states of New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey, that have adopted this very strong public policy for their states and it's really a matter of public policy.

It's a matter of saying as a state that in our state we would like to have the highest standard of care available and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association and other leading health organizations in our country and around the world have said the best standard of care is to offer survivors of rape emergency contraception when they come for care. Time is of the essence.

And I was listening to some of the questions and Representative Morris has mentioned equal protection. Yes, this is a matter of equal protection.

If we pass this legislation, we are saying that all women who survive rape and go to a hospital, any hospital in Connecticut, should get access to that very highest standard of healthcare.

So it's about equal protection and healthcare access, and I'm here to voice my very strong support along with many colleagues as well. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you, Ms. Bysiewicz. Are there comments from Committee Members or questions of our speaker? If not, thanks again, Sue.

SEC. OF STATE SUSAN BYSIEWICZ: Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: And now, Teresa Younger, Permanent Commission on the Status of Women. Sorry you had to wait.

TERESA YOUNGER: Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: My apologies.

TERESA YOUNGER: No problem. Good afternoon Senator Harris, Representative Villano and Members of the Human Services Committee. My name is Teresa Younger, and I am the Executive Director of the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today in support of Senate Bill 1343, AN ACT CONCERNING COMPASSIONATE CARE FOR SEX ASSAULT, FOR VICTIMS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT.

At the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women, we have worked for many years to promote full, comprehensive healthcare for women and to protect the needs and rights of women who are victims of sexual assault and domestic violence.

The bill before you today is about two important issues, healthcare and the right of crime victims, nothing more and nothing less.

You will have an opportunity today to hear from medical and legal specialists and experts, members from the sexual assault community and various religious perspectives. I ask you, I implore you, I encourage you to ask them the questions that weigh in front of you.

I am very fortunate to have with me today Reverend Kristen Leslie from the Yale Divinity School, and I would like to give permission to have her speak when I am done making a few more comments.

I want to just point out one very important thing that we need to remember in all of this. Emergency contraception is safe and effective and if taken within the first 72 hours of sexual intercourse. It is approved by the FDA.

It is recommended as a method of care for sexual assault survivors by the American Medical Association, the American College of Emergency Physicians, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the World Health Organization.

This bill would require that all licensed healthcare facilities provide emergency, that provide emergency treatment for victims of sexual assault to follow a standard of care that would provide medically and factually accurate information about emergency contraception, to dispense the emergency contraception when requested by the victim.

Six other states have done this, including New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts.

You have my complete written testimony in front of you, and I will be available to answer any questions. I would just like to make it clear. Emergency contraception is not abortion. In fact, emergency contraception prevents abortion by preventing unwanted pregnancies.

In this state, we commonly step forward and protect the rights of victims, protect the rights of women and we set the standards. We are not a state that steps back and says can somebody else do it.

What we do know and we have heard from sexual assault crisis counselors is that 40% of all hospitals did not provide complete emergency contraception to the victims that came to their emergency rooms.

You will have an opportunity to hear from those individuals, from victims of rape as well as doctors who can talk to you about the policies that are put forth today.

We strongly support that you protect, that you pass this bill. We support this bill, that this bill to protect victims of crime and ensure a standard of healthcare that all should receive. I thank you, and I ask that you give a moment for Reverend Leslie to speak.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you, and welcome to the Reverend.

REV. KRISTEN LESLIE: Good afternoon, Representative Villano, Senator Harris, Members of the Human Services Committee. My name is Kristen Leslie. I am the Associate Professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling at Yale University Divinity School and an ordained United Methodist clergywoman.

I speak today in support of Senate Bill 1343 because I am concerned that women receive compassionate medical care after they are raped.

Today, I am also representing the Connecticut Chapter of the Religious Coalition of Reproductive Choice, a nondenominational organization that understands that women for all faith traditions want and need complete medical care after they are raped.

There are those who would say that Roman Catholic hospitals have a Constitutional and theological right to deny medical treatment in the form of emergency contraception.

Churches and places of worship certainly do have a constitutionally protected right to promote their own beliefs within their churches and faith communities and among their members, but today we are talking about medical care by doctors in hospitals and not places of worship.

A hospital is a state-licensed and largely publicly funded facility that needs to comply with state and federal regulations about the standard of care they provide to patients. This is about patient care.

There is no constitutional right to deny necessary medical care to a victim of rape. Emergency contraception is about providing the best medical options to girls and women after they have been raped.

It is not about requiring girls and women to comply with a treatment they do not want. When hospitals refuse to provide or don't provide emergency contraception as an option, they are refusing to provide good medical care.

Emergency contraception is about making abortions unnecessary after girls or women are raped. This is not about hospitals requiring women to have abortions.

This is about how to respond to girls or women's needs after they have been raped. Emergency contraception decreases the need for abortions by making them unnecessary for rape survivors. Emergency contraception is about preventing pregnancy.

Twenty-five years ago, if a Catholic woman was raped, the Roman Catholic Church supported her decision to have a surgical contraception procedure by means of a D&C. For a quarter of a century, the Catholic Church has allowed such surgical interventions to prevent pregnancy.

Emergency contraception does the same thing without surgery. It is consistent with faith to allow for medically indicated emergency treatments for rape survivors.

Emergency contraception is not about interrupting pregnancy. It is about making pregnancy impossible.

Emergency contraception is consistent with family planning because it protects the health of girls and women by making pregnancies impossible that are the product of nonconsensual, violent and unwanted sex.

Emergency contraception is not about abandoning faith. It is about providing compassionate and faith-consistent care so that a girl or a woman does not need to live in fear of getting pregnant from an act of violence. I urge you to support the passing of Senate Bill 1343 today. Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you, Reverend Leslie. Are there questions or comments from Committee Members, either Speaker? Representative Adinolfi.

REP. ADINOLFI: Just a question. Sue was trying to mention before that about 40% of the hospitals do not provide emergency care in the way of contraceptives? I think you might have mentioned that because that certainly goes past the Catholic hospitals.

TERESA YOUNGER: Which is why we're before you today. This is not an attack on Catholic hospitals. This is about providing a standard of care--

REP. ADINOLFI: All right. Okay.

TERESA YOUNGER: --and, in fact, sexual assault counselors who responded when called to hospitals to support victims reported that during the first six months of 2006, 40% of rape victims were not offered or did not receive a full dose of emergency contraception at the hospital from which they sought treatment.

REP. ADINOLFI: Where did you gather that information? Where did that information come from? Because that seems like a very large number.

TERESA YOUNGER: This was gathered from the sexual assault crisis counselors in the State of Connecticut, and you will have an opportunity to speak with them further, but this is--

REP. ADINOLFI: They will be here too, okay.

TERESA YOUNGER: --this is the information they gathered.

REP. ADINOLFI: Okay. Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: Are there, Representative Thompson.

REP. THOMPSON: I'll take you at your word that it's not an attack on Catholic hospitals, but, Reverend, you mention specifically your differences with Catholic hospital protocol and, as I understand it, it is very narrow difference.

There has to be a test administered and there has to be evidence that the woman is experiencing, and don't ask me to explain all this, ovulation.

And I think that from my own experience, we had five children. From my own experience I think that's a very, very narrow time period, and I wonder if it isn't something you with those who develop the protocol for the Catholic hospitals might not sit down and discuss.

As I see it, they believe they are providing compassionate care. You take exception to that since in that narrow case, they're not providing it.

And the suggestion was made when Comptroller Wyman was here that we might explore other avenues, and we don't, as Representative Morris, we don't believe that busing somebody around, putting them in a taxi and so on would be an adequate way of doing that. But there must be ways you two, the two sides on this issue.

In all due respect, I think Catholic hospitals were targeted last year by news stories and legislation actually submitted where they would be punished by withdrawing funds.

And I don't know of any other religious organization, in all due respect, that is providing more care for the poor and the underserved in our state than the Catholic Church.

But I think there is a lot of common ground here, and I wish we would explore the common ground. We have a survey that says no hospital has denied the emergency contraceptive pill to rape victim in the same time period you mention that 40%.

Forty percent of the 29 birthing hospitals is about 11 hospitals, I think, and yet we have not heard of any other hospitals prominently in the news except the four and that was the result of the idea of penalizing them by withdrawing funds.

And when we began Healthy Families, the program now known as Nurturing Families, it's probably the best-run prevention program of abuse and neglect that this state has experienced, and perhaps the best-run program in the nation.

The first two locations, one was the Visiting Nurse Association in Hartford allied with the Hartford Hospital even though they were across the street from Saint Francis on Woodland Street. And the second one was Saint Mary's Hospital.

And Saint Mary's Hospital is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, as I understand it because we have short-changed them in reimbursing them for all the care they had given to those who could not afford to give care.

So I don't think there's any question that the compassion is there. And I think what we are being divided on is a very, very narrow interpretation of what is human life.

And I think that can be reviewed, and you know, if we're wrong, we're wrong. Or if they're wrong, they're wrong. If you're wrong, you're wrong.

And, but you should find areas of agreement where you can come together and find ways of serving this population, which is a very, very small percentage of our population but a very important part of our population. So those are my thoughts in response to your testimony.

REP. VILLANO: Is there a response?

TERESA YOUNGER: I would just say this. I don't believe that anybody is walking away from the table. I think part of what happens when you go through the General Assembly and you go through the legislative process is this is a process and an opportunity to learn and to share.

And one of the things that we have learned and seen is what has worked and been within the directives of religious institutions in other states, and we are willing to talk about what is happening in those other states to see if we can come up with a solution here in Connecticut that meets the care, the standard, the healthcare access that we need to provide to victims of rape.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you. Representative Bartlett.

REP. BARTLETT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your testimony. I notice you testified, your organization testified last year as well.

I keep hearing hypothesis theory, whatever the right word is, that you know if we just talk about it, we can come up with a compromise and a solution.

But this did come up last year. It did have a public hearing, and you know often times actions don't just occur without legislation or without a public policy being set.

And I am sure that in the other states those solutions came about because public policy was driven by the government. And I think there probably are good compromises.

For example, I think that the hospitals could lease a portion of their hospital space to a third party and have a 99-year lease or whatever is applicable and anything that they don't feel that they can do in terms of medical care could be provided there.

But that hasn't happened, has it? Or anything like that, has that happened in the last year at any of the hospitals that are refusing to provide this care?

TERESA YOUNGER: That's, I understand that that hasn't happened. I think, you know, to put it on the table and be quite honest with you, I think the alternative to the discussion that we're having today is to make the standard that a rape victim comes in, they have a pregnancy test.

If they are not pregnant at the moment they come in the door, then they are given emergency contraception and educated on it before they leave. I think that is the standard of care we are talking about today.

REP. BARTLETT: I appreciate that because I think that it isn't just about the Catholic hospitals. We know that based on testimony plenty of other issues that what people are supposed to do, they don't always do.

What they are supposed to follow, they don't always follow. Our own government, the State of Connecticut, is very good at not following our own guidelines, and that's why we have a Legislative Branch to oversee it, to try to make sure that, you know, that people's injustices are resolved or that our policies are followed. So thank you.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you. Any other comments from Committee Members? If not, Michelle, sorry. Representative Morris.

REP. MORRIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And again, I am just trying to get clarification on something you said earlier that Representative Adinolfi asked.

Out of that 40% who weren't provided emergency contraception, was that because it wasn't available, it wasn't available, it was refused, or was any amount of that percentage of people who actually were offered it and chose not to take it because we were given some statistics earlier based just on the Catholic hospitals that things are just aggregated in that manner?

TERESA YOUNGER: I'm going to answer the question as I have the answer to the question. But I would like to leave the door open for members from the Sexual Assault Crisis Centers to answer the question because they are the ones that did the survey.

And what they found is what I read to you, which was in the first six months of 2006 40% of rape victims were not offered and did not receive, or did not receive, the full dosage of emergency contraception at the hospital from which they sought treatment.

REP. MORRIS: Okay.

TERESA YOUNGER: That's my understanding.

REP. MORRIS: All right. Another comment, statement that you made is that the Plan B is basically an abortion. It's a contraception. Is, is the Catholic Church or all Catholic hospitals in sync with you with that statement?

TERESA YOUNGER: I can't make a statement on what the Catholic Church or the Catholic hospitals agree to or don't agree to. What I am talking about is what the FDA has said.

REP. MORRIS: Okay. So then it would be accurate to say that that basically is a scientific statement that might actually be in contradiction to a faith position.

TERESA YOUNGER: It is a scientific and medical statement, and you will have an opportunity to hear from both scientists and medical professionals that might be able to answer that for you better.

REP. MORRIS: Okay, so then we would need a person from a, from the Catholic Church to tell us what the faith position might be in terms of what constituted from the Catholic Church, oh, you may able to help us. Where is the Catholic Church on this position?

REV. KRISTEN LESLIE: They will have an opportunity to testify onto that.

REP. MORRIS: There are representatives here that are going to testify because I don't know that.

TERESA YOUNGER: Oh, yes.

REP. MORRIS: Well, in case they are not, I need to be on record that we have asked the question that the only position we have right now, I want to make sure we are clear, that it is a scientific, it is a medical opinion that was brought forward and it doesn't represent maybe the other side of, of this debate.

THERESA YOUNGER: Yeah, and what I would respond to is that the PCSW is a state agency that talks about science and talks about fact and that what I can respond to representing all women in the State of Connecticut, all girls in the State of Connecticut. And we don't make a distinction between their faith.

REP. MORRIS: Okay, you represent all women, all girls. How many victims of rape are there per year in the State of Connecticut? Do you have an idea?

TERESA YOUNGER: We don't have an actual number of how many total victims of rape. We only have a number of how many victims of rape actually show up at emergency rooms and actually go through the eight-hour process of potentially being examined when they do that--

REP. MORRIS: And what is that number?

TERESA YOUNGER: That looks, it looks like there were nearly. Last year, according to the Connecticut Sexual Assault Crisis Services, nearly 400 women were accompanied to the emergency room.

REP. MORRIS: Okay. Okay. And because I've been clear that I'm trying to look at the two sides of this, from where some people are and yet at the same time some protection for faith, how many people would be represented by the Catholic Church?

How many people does the Catholic Church represent in the State of Connecticut? Would you happen to know that number?

TERESA YOUNGER: I don't know that number.

REP. MORRIS: Okay. The only reason I'm asking that number because if there is a faith position out there for the Catholic Church, and the numbers that I'm hearing thus far, there are four hundred people that have been affected by rape in this state. When I hear from--

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: [inaudible]

REP. MORRIS: --Representative Thompson, there are at least, attended to in the emergency room, at least attended to in an emergency room because we know all incidents are not reported.

In fact, most instances are not reported, a higher number. And we have 73 that at least the Catholic hospitals had helped in one year. Was that one year Representative Thompson?

REP. THOMPSON: That was less than one year. And it was 70. I've got it here somewhere. It was 70 and all of those, none of them were refused the pill. And I think, 26 or 27.

So the Catholic hospitals and that birthing hospital represents about a third of the, no, it's less than a third. It would be of the number four hundred, the Catholic hospitals saw about a third.

REP. MORRIS: Okay--

REP. THOMPSON: It was 70.

REP. MORRIS: --and the reason I was, in my mind, the hospitals aren't doing it for a reason that has nothing to do with faith, they should be held to that standard of care period. There's no ifs, ands or buts about it from my perspective. Okay.

I'm just concerned that if we give Catholic hospitals that represent, and I'm pretty sure someone today will give us the number of how many people they represent.

And I'm certain that all Catholics may not even be in agreement with what they represent, okay. They may not be. But how are they represent a large number.

When you put this in context, I just want us to think about this, because again, I think there are more conversations that need to happen towards a solution that doesn't, that provides the care that we really want for people, for women who have been assaulted in the most horrible way, but at the same time provide protections that don't confuse a large segment of their community and their faith and undermine their faith.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you. Representative Jarmoc.

REP. JARMOC: I'll just be brief, and I wasn't planning on saying anything. I usually am not. I guess I would just say as a woman, as a Catholic, to me it doesn't matter it is one woman who is a victim of rape, whether there are 73 women, or 400 women, or 4,000 women, that a woman who is a victim of rape should have the opportunity to ask for and receive this emergency contraception.

The numbers to me, I guess they're fine, but, you know, we're talking about women's health and so I guess that's all I wanted to say. Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you, Representative Jarmoc. Last call. If not, Ms. Younger, Representative Younger, thank your testimony. And the agenda, we're going to turn now to a single bill, the autism bill, House Bill 7280.

And we're going to start hearing from people who signed up for that bill and alternate them with some of our legislators. First on the list to speak on the autism bill is Helen Bosch.

May we take our conversations outside and close the doors so our speaker can commence? Outside with our conversations, and we would appreciate having those doors closed. Thank you for your patience, Ms. Bosch. You may begin.

HELEN BOSCH: Okay. Hi, my name is Helen Bosch, and I'm Executive Director of Vista Vocational & Life Skills Center. And good afternoon, Representative Villano and distinguished Members of the Committee. I'm here to speak on the act concerning autism.

Vista Vocational & Life Skills Center is a training program for adults with disabilities. It's located on the shoreline of Connecticut.

We currently provide training and support to about 170 individuals, ranging in age from 18 to 50, who have neurological issues with a significant number of them being on the autism spectrum.

The young adults that receive training at Vista do so because we know that they have the potential to live with relative independence and work successfully.

They receive comprehensive training for about three years similar to going away to college and then they enter the shoreline community of Connecticut to be workers, voters, consumers and neighbors.

They are independent, and they are successful. They work as sales associates, food prep assistants, child care assistants, office workers, data entry clerks, hotel registration clerks, travel associates and on and on and on.

Currently, approximately 90% of those ready for employment are employed. One hundred thirty adults live in over 75 households in our community. About 50% own their own homes and 50% rent.

They participate in local churches, synagogues, fire and ambulance associations, volunteer at elder and child care facilities, help out with local community events such as the annual town cleanup or the holiday tree lighting ceremony in town.

They go the movies, they eat out, they shop, they take the bus all over the shoreline, and they lead very successful lives.

They are successful because they receive training and support. They receive life skills instruction such as money management or household management.

They receive help in getting and keeping a job. They receive counseling in how to solve conflicts and deal with those thorny social issues that arise.

They're the lucky ones. They have families or they have other funding to pay for this training and support. What about those who do not have the resources or do not have enough funding to get what they need? This is the goal of House Bill 7280, which is to give young men and women a chance in life.

It's time for the State of Connecticut to acknowledge their partnership with families and service providers and adults on the autism spectrum in supporting this population to provide a chance for them to achieve everyday dreams. No more. No less. Work, independence, friends, that's what it's all about.

I hope you support House Bill 7280. It will mean the world to those young adults, who are ready to make their mark on the world to achieve success. Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: Are there questions from Committee Members or comments on her testimony? Representative Gibbons.

REP. GIBBONS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you once again, Helen, for coming here.

HELEN BOSCH: Thank you.

REP. GIBBONS: Can you tell us, please, what it costs for someone to be at Vista for a year, please?

HELEN BOSCH: It depends on what part of the program they're in. The program is generally the cost of an average college tuition for the first three years, which can range around $40,000 for a 12-month period.

But then after that, they move into the community and during that time they can receive, it's kind of, I call it a Chinese menu of supports where you could have a wide variety of levels of supports. But I would say the average cost per year might be about between, about $15,000.

REP. GIBBONS: Do you have a large waiting list of people to get in?

HELEN BOSCH: We, well, we always have a waiting list of people to get in, but I think what happens more and the group that we're really concerned about here is the group that doesn't have any funding.

That is out there waiting, but because of their lack of financial resources and funding, aren't able to even access the services even though they know it's what they need.

REP. GIBBONS: Are there other programs in the state that offer residential care for, for adults with adults with autism?

HELEN BOSCH: That offer training and support for adults with autism? Yes. Well, there's Chapel Haven, which I know they're representing, they'll be here today speaking.

And then there's a variety of other organizations that offer different levels of support because, as like any population, folks on the autism spectrum need different things.

Some folks go to a traditional four-year college. Some folks need more life skills instruction and vocational support. Some folks need more significant care, so just depends on what they need.

REP. GIBBONS: Okay. Well, I've heard just very good things about you so thank you for doing what you do. So--

HELEN BOSCH: Thank you.

REP. GIBBONS: --thank you for coming.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you. Any other questions or comments of Ms. Bosch? If not, thank you for your testimony.

HELEN BOSCH: Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: Our next speaker is Deputy Commissioner Claudette Beaulieu of the Department of Social Services, to be followed by State Representative Denise Merrill.

DEP. COMM. CLAUDETTE BEAULIEU: Good afternoon, Senator Harris, Representative Villano and Members of the Human Services Committee. I'm Claudette Beaulieu. I'm Deputy Commissioner for Programs at the Department of Social Services.

In the interests of time, we have distributed to you our written testimony on a number of bills here today. I am specifically to testify on the Department's child support bill, and I want to thank the Committee for raising our bill for a public hearing today.

I will summarize the highlights of the child support legislation. It has a number, it's a big bill. It has 70 pages, I think. It has a number of provisions, but I'll just hit on the main points.

This bill is needed to implement the child support provisions that are contained in the Federal Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. It also institutes reasonable cost standards when pursuing medical child support for children.

It will establish a procedure with the Department of Motor Vehicle to ensure that child support obligors, who owe more than $5,000 in past-due support, are unable to renew their registrations of recreational vehicles.

And lastly, the final point I want to touch on is the Bill will bring us in line with something known as the Uniform Interstate, UIFSA, the Uniform, well, I'll get to it in my testimony.

I'm drawing a blank on the specifics of it right now, but basically this is, these are uniform standards that are set across the country so that child support orders are recognized nationally.

The Deficit Reduction Act makes a number of changes to child support, but the two most important ones are the income tax offset.

Federal law now will require, starting October 1^st of 2007, that we refer cases of past-due support to the federal government for income tax offset when the child now reaches the age of majority and is over.

Right now what happens is we are not able to pursue support for those cases once the child turns 18 even though there may be a significant arrearage.

The bill before you would bring our state law into compliance with the federal law and would apply these provisions as well to the state income tax offset program. What does that mean?

That means that in about 6,000 new cases, we would be able to pursue an intercept on a state or federal tax refund.

And in over 11,000 cases, we would be able to pursue a refund when there's already an existing child that we're pursuing a refund for who's under the age of majority in the household but there's an older sibling in the home, who has now turned 18, um, we would now be able to pursue support as well for those children.

The second significant change that the Deficit Reduction Act makes for child support is it requires a $25 fee for services for cases that have never received temporary assistance to needy families.

And that is applied to cases that we collect $500 or more on in a given calendar year. This is a federal requirement. It does not apply to any households that have received TANF benefits at any time either presently or in the past.

There are four ways that we can collect the $25 fee. We can either withhold it once we have collected $500 or more from the amount of support that is owed to the family.

And by the way, that is the way that most states are doing this. We can bill the custodial parent for the $25 fee once we have collected $500 or more, or we can bill the non-custodial parent.

The final option is that the state can assume the cost of the fee and pay for that $25 ourselves. It is our intent to withhold the $25 fee once we have collected at least $500 or more.

We looked at the option, frankly, of paying the $25 fee ourselves, but given that it would cost about $400,000 on an annual basis, we felt that it would perhaps not be prudent to pursue that method at this time.

I just want to speak briefly on the reasonable-cost standard for medical insurance orders. Presently, state law requires healthcare orders, healthcare coverage orders for children.

And parents are required to obtain insurance only if it is available at reasonable cost, but there is no definition of reasonable cost. Courts and parents really have no guidelines.

The Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement recently proposed draft regulations that would set a threshold for that, and it would define reasonable cost as that the insurance should cost no more than 5% of a parent's gross income. It does allow states to set a different standard, however.

We are proposing in this legislation to use the 5% standard for those non-custodial parents, who are defined as low income in, under the child support financial guidelines, and we would go to 7.5% for those whose income is above those guidelines.

The last proposal that I want to speak on in this bill is the one involving the Department of Motor Vehicles. What we are proposing to do here is to prevent obligors who have $5,000 in back-due support or more prevent them from renewing their registration of a recreational vehicle.

This would work very similarly to the property tax, the unpaid property tax mechanism where if you don't pay your property taxes, it gets reported to the Department of Motor Vehicle and you are not allowed to renew your registration.

This would not involve initial registrations, and the purpose of it is not to prevent somebody who needs a vehicle from going to work. These are recreational vehicles. These are RVs. These are boats.

These are items that one could argue if somebody was able to afford those kinds of luxuries while not paying their child support, we feel that we ought to be able to try to work something out on a payment plan if you are able to afford that kind of luxury in your lifestyle.

We will be doing a match with the Department of Motor Vehicles to do this if the Legislature adopts this legislation.

And we would give people notice before imposing this, and they would have the opportunity to request a fair hearing if they felt the notice was served upon them in error.

We have made a minor amendment to, a technical change that was suggested by the Department of Motor Vehicles.

And lastly, UIFSA, we are trying to bring ourselves into compliance with this uniform standard for child support orders so that it is recognized nationally, the same kinds of forms, the same kinds of processes, the same kind of procedures.

It is not required by federal law, but many states have adopted the latest version of UIFSA, and the bill before you would do, would bring us into compliance with UIFSA.

In the interests of time, that hits upon the highlights of the child support bill. You have my written testimony on a number of other bills before you today.

I would be happy to answer any questions you may have. I have brought Diane Frey, my Director of Child Support Enforcement, with me today if you have any questions. Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you for your testimony, Commissioner. Are there comments from Committee Members or questions about her testimony, anywhere around? If not, you have been thorough with no questions. Thank you, again, for your testimony.

DEP. COMM. CLAUDETTE BEAULIEU: Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: Our next speaker is State Representative Denise Merrill.

REP. MERRILL: Good afternoon, Senator Harris, Representative Villano and my colleagues. Thank you. I'm sorry. I apologize. I was over voting on another bill so I was a little late and so thank you for taking me.

I am here to testify about an ACT CONCERNING COMPASSIONATE CARE FOR VICTIMS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT. You have my written testimony.

I was going to read it, but actually, frankly, after the press conference this morning, I don't think I can say anything more than what was said by people who deal with this issue every day and by people who have been victims of rape.

And to be honest, I felt, I was trying to testify about something which I consider extremely rational about something that's really so emotional I almost can't talk about it any more after this morning.

But I think the time has come for us to clarify state law. I think that the women of this state have a right, as victims of this terrible crime, they have a right to depend on our hospitals to provide not only adequate but also consistent care.

We cannot, as a state, be deciding what treatment, what medical treatment people receive based on which hospital they happen to arrive at at the time of their injury or illness.

We wouldn't tolerate this in any other medical procedure or area, and I don't see why we should tolerate it here.

This is really primarily, I think, a victim's rights bill. People that are victims of rape arrive at a hospital that they have no knowledge of that hospital. It depends which way the ambulance turned that day maybe.

I am very aware, by the way, because I am Chair of the Appropriations Committee of the condition that our hospitals are in right now. Emergency rooms are very crowded.

There are not a lot of choices as to which emergency room you arrive at. And I think for that reason alone, if a single woman is denied access to a safe, legal, over-the-counter medication, we have doubly victimized that person.

And there, I don't know how much testimony has gone before me, but there has been, you know, a survey showing this is a real problem. It is not as we were thinking last year maybe an imagined problem.

There is evidence that up to 40% of rape victims were not offered or did not receive full doses of emergency contraception at both secular and religious hospitals.

So this is not a religious issue as some have made it out to be. In this healthcare world, hospitals are important public institutions receiving substantial amounts of public funding. We're dependent on them. They have to provide unbiased, high quality care to everyone who comes to their doors.

We have to be able to expect that every person who comes to a hospital is available to them all legal healthcare options especially when there is a crime involved. I mean, I would say most especially when a crime is involved.

I think we can't overstate our responsibility to these women, to these people that arrive at emergency care, and I implore you to pass this legislation.

We need a standard of care we can all rely on in this area as in every other area that we provide medical care to everyone in our state. And I think we primarily are responsible for establishing that standard of care and making sure it is consistent across our state. Thanks.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you, Denise [Gap in testimony. Changing from Tape 1B to Tape 2A.]

--from Committee Members or questions? If not, oh, I'm sorry, Representative Bartlett. I didn't see your hand up.

REP. BARTLETT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Representative Merrill, for coming. You are Chair of Approps. A question did come up earlier about, I think it was, punishment was the word if they didn't follow the policy that the state provides.

And I just wanted to know if you wanted to address that. We do have uncompensated care for hospitals where the state steps in and provides additional assistance. We do have Medicaid.

There are, what are the avenues of the state money that are given to the hospitals, the different line items I guess I would say. And if you want to comment about if they don't follow that. Thank you.

REP. MERRILL: Well, I mean, we provide substantial funding to all hospitals mostly through Medicaid, Medicare dollars. It's all government funding. Medicare is federal. Medicaid is state.

Increasingly the hospitals are relying on that funding. We provide uncompensated care about $100 million a year to hospitals for that.

And as of last year, we provided separate funding because increasingly hospitals, our hospital system is very fragile financially due to low compensation on some of our public rates, and we're very committed to helping that problem this year.

But substantial portions of their income are from state dollars. A number of line items, numerous line items involved.

REP. BARTLETT: Is there any other circumstance or case where we provide public dollars to any institutions in the State of Connecticut and we allow them to opt-out and not follow the public policy?

REP. MERRILL: Well, there may be examples. I think, you know, this is an interesting area because traditionally we basically think that physicians are in charge of medical treatment.

And that in every area I can think of it's really the legality, the standard of care that is divined for physicians that determines the relationship is supposed to be between the physician and the patient.

And so it's a highly unusual situation where an institution where something is happening would be the determinant of what treatment is involved.

I mean that's why we have standards of care. And mostly those standards of care have been defined by the medical community, by the AMA and other, and that's why all of us keep citing all these institutions that define medical practice.

Define what's safe. Define what's legal. And that's why, you know, things like the AMA and the various associations, physicians associations, that's because essentially this is a matter between a physician and a patient. Fundamentally.

REP. BARTLETT: Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: Representative Morris.

REP. MORRIS: Representative Merrill, thank you very much for your testimony today. And again, so everybody's clear in the room, I believe that a woman who's been raped, we need to make certain that she has given education, is given a reasonable option or opportunity to receive, to use this pill. However, I do have some concerns as it relates to Catholic hospitals.

You cited, it is the second time today I have heard there is evidence that 40% of victims have not been offered this option and haven't received care. Can you cite to me the evidence, the validity of that evidence, the credibility behind that evidence?

REP. MERRILL: Well, I mean, this was a survey conducted based on what happened last year. People were saying, well you have no evidence. Nothing's happening. There's no problem.

People are really getting what they need or what they request or what they are legally entitled to.

And so the survey was conducted by those people who are actually working in the hospitals with rape victims. It was conducted by the sexual assault crisis. I forget the acronym, but it is a survey.

It is a difficult situation because, of course, there's lots of privacy issues involved. But it's a self-report, self-study. Whether it's 40%, I suppose you could question if it's 30% or 50%.

REP. MORRIS: The reason I ask about the credibility because the group that took, that did the survey, I believe they are opponents of this bill, correct, proponents of this bill?

REP. MERRILL: Oh, yes.

REP. MORRIS: So that's why I'm just sort of questioning the possible credibility. It would be nice to have this type of research done by an unbiased group. But let me go to another issue, standard of care.

REP. MERRILL: Yes.

REP. MORRIS: I hear you, standard of care was something that was really important to you, am I correct?

REP. MERRILL: Um-hum.

REP. MORRIS: I'm going to cite to you a highly unlikely, at least I certainly hope to be, highly unlikely situation scenario.

What if, at any point in time, the State of Connecticut teenage pregnancies became so, so rampant and we didn't have other means of taking care of the situation, and if someone felt that the standard of care ought to be abortion, and Catholic hospitals are against abortion.

Would you be in favor at that point to say, well, this is the standard of care so, therefore, Catholic hospitals still need to provide abortions because we, as a government, have said that that is the standard of care.

Of, would you be in favor of saying, you know, what the standard of care is abortions for everybody except for Catholic hospital?

REP. MERRILL: Well, in the first instance, that would have to play out a long ways because right now we're talking about adults, first of all.

REP. MORRIS: And that's why I said highly improbable situation, highly improbable.

REP. MERRILL: Well, I think that the situation would have been defined by law before it reached that point.

I mean, you would have to make several leaps of change in the law before you would get to something like that because you'd first have to agree that, that whatever the standard was, was legal for all people, and so, I mean, you're making quite a few leaps in law, if not in medical practice.

Medical practice is all about what's safe and legal. And so if those two things were defined as safe and legal, then that would be again it would be up to the physician and the patient.

I mean, I think what you have interfering here is sort of an institutional bias that's inappropriate.

It's about what's someone legal right is, which is exactly why once this medication became an over-the-counter medication, that's very meaningful.

That means its decided to be safe and effective for everyone, adults, which is still the standard, but I mean, that's, those are the things that are defined by law and not by other people besides the people whom the law affects.

REP. MORRIS: Again, as I stated, mine was a very, highly improbable situation but abortion today is safe and legal. Would that be a fair statement?

REP. MERRILL: For some. It's qualified like many of these things. I mean, you also don't give bypass surgery to somebody who doesn't need it either. There's all kinds of qualifications on all kinds of medical procedures.

REP. MORRIS: But generally accepted within the medical community, they would say that abortion is safe and legal. Would that be correct?

REP. MERRILL: Not in all--

REP. MORRIS: Generally, within the medical community?

REP. MERRILL: No, not in all cases. I mean, I think that again, that women won the right to these things, to make these decisions between themselves and their doctors a long time ago, and that's really the issue.

REP. MORRIS: You're correct. But the issue that we're, we have on the table today and as I'm hearing is all the more, is a Catholic institution that may feel that this pill may constitute from their faith position, an abortion, something that they would be opposed to. All right.

That's why I'm giving this situation and asking should there be an exemption based on that same position, because how improbable would it, would it be improbable for us to say, you know what, Catholic hospitals, you may be against abortion.

But you may be against abortion, but you know what, we've come to a time in society. Highly improbable, we would never really expect this to happen that we decided this is the standard of care, the what-if situation. That's what I'm doing, the what if.

REP. MERRILL: Well, here's a what if for you. What if a Catholic hospital or any other hospital decided that doing a heart operation was against its faith? I mean, would you then say they would not be able to do a heart operation on someone who needed one?

That's the problem. That's why you have standards of care and that's why you have medical procedures that are deemed safe by the medical community. I mean, that's a what if for you, too. How far are you going to go?

REP. MORRIS: That's why I try to keep in the realm of something that's like choice rights because that's what it is. And certainly we in the State of Connecticut, we've made it legalized for women to have choice.

The challenge, I think, to some degree is getting the groups that need to have the conversation together so that we, as legislators, don't have to make a decision, we don't have to get involved in the faith piece of it and undermine it with something the faith community may feel.

REP. MERRILL: Well, unfortunately they are basically publicly functioning institutions, and they have to obey the laws and the rights that people have for everyone.

If people had a choice, and if they wanted to establish a choice of saying I would not take anyone who is not of my same beliefs, that would be okay, I guess.

But when they are serving the entire public, I don't think that a hospital, which is not a church by the way. I mean, it is a hospital. It's a public institution, functioning as a public institution.

They need to take everyone who comes to their doors. And they want that. They want to do that. Once you are taking everyone to your doors, you can no longer let religious belief the measure of what you are going to do with that person. They have rights, too.

REP. MORRIS: Well, certainly from testimony we heard earlier, we know that they don't turn anyone away from their doors. They comply with federal law in that regard.

However, Representative Bartlett asked a good question. I mean, are there institutions because of their faith position that we allow some sort of exemption.

In government, over history, haven't we allowed certain exemptions of law based on faith? When we go back to the old time in the service of the Army, whether you were a conscientious objector or something, there were exemptions that were given due to faith positions, and that's just my commentary on that. Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you. Senator Harris.

SEN. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, Representative Merrill. Following up on what Representative Morris said, let's assume that highly improbable situation, which he even said that somehow in the future this institution, the General Assembly decides that abortion will be a form of teen pregnancy control.

And let's take off the table the fact that even though in Connecticut there is resistance by the Archdiocese, and they provide great care, and I have a lot of respect for the Archbishop. I want to put that on the table.

Let's assume that even though in Connecticut there is a prohibition by the Church here against emergency contraceptive, even though in New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts it's allowed by that same institution, so let's get over that and say, okay, it's religious doctrine.

Might there be a difference in that example to the emergency contraceptive example that the people presenting that need and be, are there with a clock ticking after being brutalized in an emergency situation, whereas in the situation, the highly improbable one that Representative Morris raises, if you had that policy you would have the ability to go to another place? There would be that type of an option?

REP. MERRILL: Yes, that's a good point. I mean, you know, the emergency nature of the situation is key. Otherwise, obviously, you can walk into a drug store and buy it.

So it is the emergency nature of the situation where a person is in a sense possibly even held captive in the sense that maybe they're injured.

Maybe they can't think for themselves or act on their own behalf, and so I think that's exactly the point. We need to be able to protect these people.

REP. BARTLETT: And along the lines we keep talking about the 40% that have been denied, which I think is an indicator that this is about a standard of care across the board, not picking between various hospitals, institutions, religions, etc.

But that 40% statistic, would your opinion about emergency contraception change even it was one percent or is that--

REP. MERRILL: I think if there is one person who has a right to an over-the-counter medication to prevent being impregnated by a rapist, I think that's one too many.

REP. BARTLETT: Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you, Senator Harris. Other questions? Representative Thompson.

REP. THOMPSON: Good afternoon, Representative Merrill. You made the statement that it wasn't a church-state issue--

REP. MERRILL: I don't think it is.

REP. THOMPSON: It wasn't in any committee that I was on last year, and I do remember reading the newspaper accounts, and Catholic hospitals were specifically cited when the proposal was made to remove funding, the emergency assistance funding, from those institutions.

So we did raise the question with representatives of those hospitals, and they were amazed because they said, well, we've really have never had a problem with this. Okay.

So we asked them to do a survey. And they did do a survey, and we're talking about four hospitals of the 29 birthing hospitals so that's what 12% or something like that.

And they came back and reported that there were 73 victims, walk-in 46, by ambulance 27. How many were denied the Plan B based on pregnancy ovulation testing? Zero. Okay.

We had testimony earlier from a representative from the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women, who gave us some other numbers.

I think there were 400 statewide, and she had a number on the, and it was the same time period, January 1, and couldn't identify the hospitals. There were about 11 hospitals, so obviously more than Catholic hospitals were denying the pill.

REP. MERRILL: Right.

REP. BARTLETT: And several people have said I just wouldn't deny a person. And I said that too in the debate. We just couldn't deny that kind of service.

And so we did ask for, and I was quoted in the paper so I'm still a member of the Church, I think, but in any event what came to us as a part of that our request for further information was their protocol. And you are right.

When the, if there's evidence of pregnancy. Well, it wouldn't matter because the pill is preventive and it would not affect the pregnancy.

However, if at that stage of the ovulation there is the potential of life, the Church would rule that in our hospitals we do not want to provide that service.

We'll do everything possible to provide care to that person and to also provide alternative means of providing the pill such as somebody bringing in the pill. I don't know what the alternatives were.

But in any event, it's a very, vary narrow strip, and we want to provide, you know, the best care. At the same time, the separation of the church and state is very real.

We see it in education. We see it in all sorts of different ways, and here we have a religious group that is defending its understanding of their faith.

So why couldn't you folks instead of threatening to remove emergency assistance money last year, follow up this and come together with the other side and work out a protocol.

It doesn't, in my mind, it doesn't have to be that that service has to be immediately delivered. And I don't mean waiting, you know, a week, two weeks. I mean within hours of providing that medication.

So what I'm pleading for is, you know, let's talk to the other side. We have major problems with, and you know from your position, with Saint Mary's Hospital in Waterbury is, and what they have done to help the poor.

And, you know, to say to them, wow, because you denied this pill on this basis, you're not going to get emergency assistance money, that's not in this bill--

REP. MERRILL: No.

REP. BARTLETT: --and hope it wouldn't be, but what would you do?

REP. MERRILL: Jack, first of all, I will say I personally met with the Archbishop and people from the Church trying to work something out because this seems to me something, I'm frankly quite shocked at their position, because you're right.

It was not originally, it was never a religious issue. It was an issue that we knew existed in all the hospitals, in many of the hospitals, for a variety of reasons.

The only thing that made it become a religious issue was when the Catholic Church in this Diocese only, is my understanding. I think there's one other in the country, maybe Peoria, Illinois. Correct me if I am wrong. I don't know. That took this position.

It's a very, very hard-line position, and we talked about many possibilities of ways that this could be dealt with in a way, that it seemed to me, and it seemed at the time of the meeting, frankly, that people could agree to.

One option was to let these same nurses, or the sexual assault crisis center people come in. I mean, they're there anyway. We offer rape crisis kits in situations where people are raped in order to facilitate the evidence collection.

What would be wrong with just having the pill available? It's over-the-counter. It's like an aspirin.

You know, what would be wrong with having it there and have someone who's a counselor, who's dealing with the person perhaps say, by the way, and they were very clear they have no problem telling women about their rights. They do, they do inform them. That's part of their protocol. They say we are happy to inform everyone.

The issue that you brought up about, well, it's just a small amount of time they're saying they wouldn't give it just during this one period of time if they happened to be at this particular point in the cycle.

The problem is that's the only time they need it, because that's the only time that you can become pregnant. So it's, there are ways around this, but it didn't seem to be acceptable for whatever reason.

I actually came away from the meeting thinking that we had a compromise that would work. And I can't understand why that wouldn't be acceptable, frankly, and it has been worked out with the Church in every other jurisdiction in this country except for one. So I don't know how this got to be such a problem. I really don't.

REP. BARTLETT: Well, I think it got to be a problem because of the publicity surrounding last year's removal of the emergency assistance money.

REP. MERRILL: I don't think so. I think it was a problem before then. Otherwise that wouldn't have happened. I mean, I think what happened, frankly, originally when this came up last year, it was a very simple bill and I think people were actually surprised that it became an issue.

I don't know at what time this written protocol came out, but that's what triggered all this. I think in this state we were fine. People were getting what they needed in ways that were appropriate.

Doctors were making those decisions with patients, I think, without much fanfare. And there was a sense among all the hospitals, I think, and having talked to a lot of people since then that work in emergency rooms, that's my distinct impression.

Now, there obviously according to this survey were problems anyway that weren't really the trigger for all this. I think it was the issuance of a written protocol that really triggered all the problems and ever since then we have been trying to come up with a way to satisfy all parties.

I thought we were very close to that and I still don't understand why that wouldn't have worked. Or having same nurses come in who are already counseling people.

I mean, it's an over-the-counter medication. We're not talking about an abortion. We're talking about a birth control pill basically. And it's been women's rights for a long time in this state and everywhere else in the country to have a right to birth control anyway.

I mean, I understand the Catholic Church is opposed to birth control, but, you know, I mean, it's just not the law anymore, and frankly, I was raised as a Catholic, Jack, and I know for many years there are many, many Catholic women taking birth control pills.

REP. BARTLETT: Well, you and I are not theologians or medical doctors, but I hope you'll keep trying.

REP. MERRILL: I will, and I'd love to find a solution. Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: Denise, thank you very much for your testimony. [inaudible - microphone not on] Denise, you're not finished.

REP. MERRILL: Sorry, they're telling me I have to go vote for something here.

REP. MORRIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The solution that you just came up with was one that I proposed as well, and I am certainly in favor of. I think it makes all the sense in the world.

So would you be favorable, this bill had to go forward somehow, and we couldn't informally get people to agree to the things that we would like them to agree to and have the conversations, that somehow the language was somehow changed such that it would allow for those opportunities so that down the road, if it ends up being the faith institution, we gave you that mechanism, you know, Catholic hospitals, whoever.

I mean, maybe if we have to go forward with this, that's the way to do it and at least honor and respect those for their faith position contrary to what I'm hearing a lot of people say it's not an abortion. If this faith position says it's an abortion, I think we need to respect that faith position.

Scientifically it may be not be such, but if that's their faith position, I need to, so again, would you be in favor of that?

REP. MERRILL: Well, sure, I mean, I'm happy to keep working on this. But you know, my primary concern is for all the people that that's not their faith and they happen to be the one in the emergency room and, you know, their rights have to be respected.

So within that, I think that, I do think there's a way to work this out. I'm surprised it hasn't been worked out to be honest because this has just been made into a much bigger problem than it really is.

REP. MORRIS: I think the language, as we have right now really doesn't provide that allowance.

REP. MERRILL: Well, that's possible. I mean, I'm happy to work with people.

REP. MORRIS: We'll probably have to come from a change of language that at least allows that. Maybe that could help this conversation move along a little further--

REP. MERRILL: That would be great.

REP. MORRIS: --because at this point, I think, we're not even providing some type of exemption or allowance for faith institutions.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you very much. Again, thank you very much for your testimony Denise. Our next speaker is Senator Louis DeLuca.

SEN. DELUCA: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for allowing me to testify this, which I think is a very, shall we say, discussed bill.

I'm here, for the record, I'm Senator Lou DeLuca, Senator for the 32^nd District. I'm here to testify in opposition of Senate Bill 1343, AN ACT CONCERNING COMPASSIONATE CARE FOR VICTIMS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT.

I haven't heard any of the other testimony, but I did hear a little bit of the last that this could be worked out. And I also heard said that abortion is legal and this an abortion pill, and these, this is an abortion pill and it's sold in stores.

And I would agree to all that. I would agree to what's been said, but the law does not trump the Catholic Church concepts and beliefs and that's what we're talking about.

When we hear about what happened last year, the bill did not pass in the Health Committee and then there was a back-door attempt to do it through Appropriations, which then brought all this visibility to this issue and brought us to where I think we are today.

And I think that there are ways to work this out. In fact, at a recent leadership meeting with the Democrat leaders and the Governor, this discussion came about, and I suggested a compromise that might be able to work out.

I heard Representative Merrill say that there are nurses that work there, and there are rape counselors that attend these people when they come to the emergency room, they're there to help. And they should be. This is a very traumatic situation for this person, and they need all the help they can get.

Now let's, so my suggestion was if there is a rape counselor, that they can have the pill in their rape kit. They can, they can discuss this with them.

They're not going to follow the nun, or somebody in the hospital is not going to follow that lady into the ladies room. There are ways to work this out that probably would be all right with everyone concerned.

But the insistence, the insistence that the hospital must dispense it is where the problem is. You're asking somebody who is against it, their teachings are against that, to go against their teachings, and that's where the rub is.

Nobody is saying they're not compassionate. No one. No one. We were told last year that this pill is good for 72 hours. If it's good for 72 hours, what is the emergency that it has to be given this minute?

I'm sorry, I didn't hear anybody laughing when anybody else was testifying. Mr. Chairman, I'd appreciate the same courtesy that others get.

If it is a 72-hour pill, then why did they insist that they have it? Secondly, in, I have not heard of an instance where a woman was denied care or brought to a place where it could be administered if it was so chosen.

I have not heard of an example that somebody suffered because of the teachings or the beliefs of the Catholic hospital. That's the other point.

We can work it out. Yes, I would agree with Representative Merrill. I would agree with the question that was asked by the Representative here a moment ago.

It can be worked out, but it will not be worked out where there is no compromise by either side that stand there and are unwilling to compromise.

If they demand that the hospitals must go against what they believe in, it won't happen. If the hospitals aren't willing to work something out, it won't happen.

Lastly, it is now sold in drug stores. It is now over-the-counter. Why do people still insist that it has to be dispensed by someone who's against it? We're told that it's a birth control pill and it's sold in drug stores.

There are many birth control devices sold in drug stores. That doesn't mean the Catholic hospitals dispense them or should be ordered to dispense them and any attempts to use money to punish those that stand up for their own principles, their own beliefs, in my opinion is wrong.

I'm sorry to go on so long. I didn't come in intending to testify, but I felt as though I had to add my voice to this because I think this is an issue that will continue.

Unfortunately, last year it didn't pass and so people are back here this year. If it doesn't pass this year, they'll be back here next year and the issue will go on until we reach some way of accommodation and some way of working it out.

Thank you, again, for allowing me to testify. I'd be happy to try to answer any questions. I'll try to answer any questions.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you, Senator DeLuca. Questions? Senator Kissel.

SEN. KISSEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I just want to try to clarify, because you said that you had to compromise positions, and as I understand it, I would draw a distinction between birth control pills and this particular pill because I think the philosophical disagreement comes down to the point of conception.

And if someone is raped, then there's, the individual has a chance of having conceived and there's a debate as to when life begins and all of that.

But it strikes me from your testimony that the compromise would be that the pill could be administered in the Catholic hospital, but that it would be administered by someone that is not a paid employee of the Catholic hospital, that a rape crisis counselor.

So that the pill would be available in that facility and that, at that time, where, and it's my understanding from my talking to folks like Dr. Lee and folks like that that are involved in forensics that when that critical evidence which will lead hopefully to the ultimate prosecution and incarceration of the rapist, that at that time is when that pill could be administered by an individual after consulting with the victim in the institution, but not by an employee of the institution. Is that correct?

SEN. DELUCA: Well, that's a suggestion that I have made because I feel as though we're going to continue this back and forth if everybody is standing solidly in cement and refusing to move.

That's the reason I came up with the suggestion because a rape counselor is a third-party, not employed by the hospital, as you had indicated that I thought might be a way of working it out.

I, let me hasten to add, I didn't discuss this with the Catholic hospitals and see if it was all right with them. It's just something that I thought might be something that could be worked out.

SEN. KISSEL: Thank you very much, Senator DeLuca. I think that's a very reasonable compromise. I would have to find out a little bit more as to when that rape crisis counselor intervenes with the victim.

But it would strike me that for the preservation of very valuable forensic evidence that it would be very early on, probably almost simultaneously with the consultation with the physician.

So I think that's a valuable path to continue researching. And I am one of those individuals that stridently hope that both sides can sit down together and work out a compromise that both protects a woman's constitutional rights, also acknowledging that we have constitutional protections in the State of Connecticut for victims of crime, but also would be mindful that these hospitals, some of which are faith-based, have things that are important to their mission as well. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. DELUCA: It is my understanding, Senator, that in most cases, I don't know the percentage, I don't have the actual figures, but in almost all cases that a rape counselor is in attendance, whether that person be a female officer of the police department or who is certified as a rape counselor, somebody from an organization that works with them, they are notified of this by the police and/or the hospital when the person is brought into the emergency room if they are brought in.

One thing I didn't indicate in my testimony is, which I testified last year, is when the person is brought to a hospital in almost every one of the six Catholic hospitals in the State of Connecticut, within 10 or 15 minutes there's another secular hospital that they could be brought to.

And the ambulance drivers and/or the police who arrive at the scene know what is best for the individual can take them to the appropriate hospital.

I can't see somebody in that instance, and in fact, one hospital in Waterbury where I checked, very few, very few cases brought to their hospital. I don't know if that's the reason, but they had very few compared to the other hospital, which is five minutes away.

REP. VILLANO: Representative Schofield.

REP. SCHOFIELD: Thank you, Chairman Villano. Hi, Lou. Nice to see you in a different room.

REP. DELUCA: Didn't I see you somewhere today?

REP. SCHOFIELD: Yeah. I appreciate your suggestion very much. I just want to share with you that I agree with a similar, with that suggestion and had exactly that conversation with a representative of the Catholic hospitals who visited with me in my office, and they categorically rejected it so I would ask that you maybe have a conversation with them and implore them to accept your suggestion.

I also want to clarify that the 72 hours is a timeframe in which you can take the pill, but the effectiveness of it diminishes with every hour that passes.

It's not like it's equally effective and then, boom, on the 73^rd hour, it's ineffective. It diminishes over time so timeliness is actually important and you'll hear that from other testifiers probably later on.

SEN. DELUCA: I am aware of that, but I didn't put the 72-hour time limit on it. It has been put on by the manufacture. It has been in testimony that by those that propose it to say it is a 72-hour pill so it's not my limitation.

It's the limitation, it's the number, the hour that's been put on by the manufacturer and those that support it have indicated that they understand it 72 hours. And as to your second point, I haven't had that conversation with representatives.

REP. SCHOFIELD: Please do.

REP. DELUCA: I intend to. This just came up two or three weeks ago, as I said, with a leadership meeting with the Governor when we were kicking it around, and I have been thinking about that and that conversation brought it out and it has been my intention to try to talk to them to see if they're, to see if this works.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you. Other comments? Oh, yes, Representative Bartlett.

REP. BARTLETT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator DeLuca, for coming today. I just want to clarify so I understand what your position is. Is your position that the Plan B is an abortion pill or a contraceptive?

REP. DELUCA: My position, it is my understanding that it is a highly, a high dose of birth control that is, in effect prevents, prevents the pill from attaching to the uterus, so therefore, I'm not a doctor. I'm not a scientist.

I guess, in my opinion, it prevents fertilization, and therefore would probably be birth control in the, somebody have a problem with this thing?

REP. VILLANO: The bell is going to ring every three minutes to remind us that we're, excuse me, Senator DeLuca, that we're two hours and 20 minutes into our meeting. We have many, many speakers to go, so the bell is going to ring to remind us we're short on time.

SEN. DELUCA: So my understanding what is probably would be a birth control under that.

REP. BARTLETT: I appreciate that because I think it's important if we're going to have a calm and rational discussion that we come to some levels of agreement as to, you know, what some definitions are because some of the testimony does not, you know, it says something different.

And so you know, it's incumbent upon me, and I think everybody else, to at least know what our own definitions are and how we regard it in order to have an intelligent conversation--

SEN. DELUCA: Well, I said under my understanding of what the pill is comprised of, you could, can see, wrong word. You could understand that it's a birth control pill.

But I also respect and understand that some people consider it an abortion pill because it prevents the completion of the conception so I understand--

REP. BARTLETT: And I understand, and I understand what you're saying as well. I think it is a contraceptive. I agree with you and my understanding.

The other thing, I just, there's a debate here I think about access to medical care versus faith-based beliefs. And I would say, you know, that I think that as legislators we need to prioritize what is, you know, what are our priorities, what are our values and what comes first I guess.

And is access to care, whatever that definition ends up being, does that trump an individual's medical beliefs. So if you come up with a standard of medical protocol, does that trump someone's religious beliefs.

SEN. DELUCA: Well, I would agree with you that access to care should be our prominent, predominate concern. And if the fact were that there was not another hospital within 15 minutes of each of the six Catholic hospitals, then that would be a major issue.

The fact that there is another hospital within 15 minutes of every Catholic hospital, number one. And number two, as I indicated, ambulance drivers and/or police know the situation. I don't believe the access of care becomes an issue.

REP. BARTLETT: Okay, but let's, I understand your argument, but you're, you are establishing that access to care in some regards. You're saying there is an out, an option out, but access to care does trump faith-based beliefs.

SEN. DELUCA: No, I didn't say that. I said if it would become a major issue. I didn't say it trumped beliefs.

REP. BARTLETT: I was asking for the priorities so--

SEN. DELUCA: Yeah, well, you know, I don't think over 2,000-some-odd years of Catholicism is going to be trumped by the fact that they have to go an extra ten minutes to another hospital that says access to care is denied. That's a different story.

We're talking about a religion that has survived many centuries through a lot of crisis and a belief that is held and taught today to millions of people throughout the world. We're not saying that this is a sect that just came about last year that believes something--

REP. BARTLETT: I'm not saying anything like that.

SEN. DELUCA: --and I'm not saying you are. But I'm trying to explain why I don't believe anything trumps and should disregard a people's belief and what they believe in. We say--

REP. BARTLETT: Let me approach it a different way then.

SEN. DELUCA: --there's a separation of church and state except when the state wants to step on the church.

REP. BARTLETT: Let me approach it a different way then. Let's say that the Catholic hospital is 100 miles away from another hospital. If that is the case, would you then support this legislation and say that because of access to care, that we would have to provide Plan B?

SEN. DELUCA: That's a suppositional question that doesn't apply to the issue at hand Representative. In the State of Connecticut we don't have that problem.

That problem, I don't even think about that problem, and I would not want to answer a suppositional question that doesn't apply because it doesn't apply. We have a hospital within 15 minutes. Access is not an issue in my mind.

REP. BARTLETT: I guess I posed it that way because if you have a victim in the emergency room who's just been raped in their mind, perhaps, and in reality, not only in their mind, whether it be five minutes away or 15 minutes away or whatever, it really is 100 miles away to them. That's where you and I disagree, which is fine. But I'm just stating that.

SEN. DELUCA: But the point, the point you're saying if the person is at the one hospital and has to be transported again. I'm saying they don't get transported to the Catholic hospital because once they get in the vehicle instead of going that direction, they go that direction.

That direction is five minutes. That direction is ten. So they go that direction rather. That's why I say there's no problem with access of care. That is not a problem.

If I were in a state that had a hospital 100 miles away, I might be looking for another solution. I would be thinking of some other way how we could solve the problem, but I am not.

So I am testifying and answering the problem that we have, which I don't consider access of care a problem.

REP. BARTLETT: I respect your position, but I do think that if you listen to rape victims and what happens and state of mind and the fact of how victimized that they are, that your suggestion that they leave those premises to take Plan B elsewhere is, in my mind anyway, a further victimization of what's already occurred and that's all I'm saying.

SEN. DELUCA: I understand what you said, but I also said when they get into the ambulance or car--

REP. BARTLETT: You're assuming that they can make that choice.

SEN. DELUCA: They don't have to make that choice. I said earlier, the police or the ambulance driver who work in that city, work in that town, understand the difference between what the Catholic hospital provides and what the other--

REP. BARTLETT: What if they're Catholic and they don't believe in Plan B and they don't want to tell the person. I mean, you know--

SEN. DELUCA: We're talking, if you want to go into a lot of what ifs, we can spend the rest of the afternoon on what ifs, but I'm talking about, I'm talking about real life. In my investigation--

REP. BARTLETT: Oh my.

SEN. DELUCA: --in one city, in Waterbury that was most of the cases almost except those that were very close or somebody didn't ask the question, they all went to the Waterbury Hospital.

REP. BARTLETT: We have to agree to disagree. Thank you, Sir.

SEN. DELUCA: Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: Representative Adinolfi.

REP. ADINOLFI: Just a quickie to reiterate what Senator DeLuca said. I have in front of me the brochure from the people that manufacture the Plan B pill.

In their thing, their pill, just to reiterate what Senator DeLuca said, it says that the pill must be taken to be effective within 72 hours after sex. And that's the first pill. And the second pill must be taken within 12 hours after that.

Now if this pill is an over-the-counter pill and a rape crisis counselor is at the hospital and the hospital, who will usually give the pill in 99.9% of the cases, and where they come out and they say, well, if you've already conceived or you're pregnant, so we can't give you the pill.

Now there's other reasons why a rape victim goes to a hospital. They could be bruised. They could be hurt. They could be hemorrhaging.

There could be a number of reasons why they go besides the one item of possibility of being pregnant or becoming pregnant.

Now if the hospital does everything they have to do to, if they have to give stitches or whatever might happen to make the patient stable, there's no reason in the world when they say, okay, 99%.

We'll give the pill, but we feel in this case we can't give the pill, as that patient walks out the door, why the sexual assault victim's advocate can't say, when you get out the door I've got half a dozen in my pocket. We'll go over here.

I mean, what's the big deal? I just don't [Gap in testimony. Changing from Tape 2A to Tape 2B.]

--the Catholic hospitals do come under the auspices of the Archdiocese. They're not independent, and I think that's something that we have to consider.

There are ways around it to accomplish the end result. We're trying to stand on principles here. I think sometimes we have to give a little, and the Catholic hospitals are willing to give a lot.

But I see no reason why if the pill is available over-the-counter and the rape victim's advocate has the pill with them, and in the rare, rare case I don't know of any yet, where the Catholic hospital has refused the pill, that it can't be given on the way out the door.

And everybody's happy, and the patient's taken care of if it works. And then it only works 89% of the time when given in the first 72 hours.

I just, and the reason I'm saying that, unfortunately, I have had the opportunity to be in the emergency room a number of times over the last six months and I've never left, never been given a medication while I was in the hospital where I needed it.

I left with a pair of crutches and two prescriptions, but I wasn't given the medication while I was in the hospital. And let me tell you, I was very bad.

And I just don't understand, I mean I understand the different situations, but here you have a situation where you don't even need a prescription for the pill. I needed it and had to wait until the next day. Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you, Senator DeLuca.

SEN. DELUCA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

REP. VILLANO: I'm going to change the ground rules a little bit. In the interest of moving this hearing along and giving everybody here an opportunity to be heard. We've lost some of the people, and I regret that.

What I would like to do is emphasize that speakers will be limited to three minutes and the bell will ring announcing the three minutes is up.

I would also ask Committee Members to be very, very judicious in asking questions of speakers, whose answers they have heard from previous speakers and that if you have a particular question, any of you, either side of the, that you want to ask the speaker go, go into the corridor into the minute and come back in. Take your conversation there.

Again, I regret that it's now two minutes and 35, we've only heard about 10 or 11 speakers, and I want to accommodate as many of the speakers as possible.

Most of you have written testimony. Please summarize it and make time for the next speaker. We'll try to accommodate all of you as possible, but let's be very judicious in our use of time. Senator Kissel.

SEN. KISSEL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's come to my attention, because I know that we have two big issues here before us. We have, you know, this hospital issue, but we also have the autism.

And I know that we're way past the public officials' time, and it just strikes me that families with family members that have autism, they have a tremendous amount of pressure and strain on themselves.

And so I don't know to the extent possible we can limit the public officials going forward, but I think we really should as a Committee. I'm just hopeful that we can do whatever we can to get the autism folks up before us as soon as possible. That's all.

REP. VILLANO: Yeah, I have the list and our next speaker will be from the autism list and that's Jane Brown. She left. That was my point. I'm going to skip how. Mary Mushinsky, Representative Mushinsky has been very patient, and we're going to give her a chance to speak, very briefly.

REP. MUSHINSKY: Very briefly. I'm in support of, I'm Mary Mushinsky from 85^th District, and I'm in support of both the House Bill 7280, AN ACT CONCERNING AUTISM, and I will give you written testimony on that, and Senate Bill 1343, AN ACT CONCERNING COMPASSIONATE CARE FOR VICTIMS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT, which I would an amendment added to, mainly because I'm tired of working on this bill.

The issue on this bill is a conflict between very sincere religious precepts, and a very sincere desire to assist innocent rape victims and the Legislature's job, and I include myself here, is to resolve this conflict in a respectful manner that respects both positions.

So I am recommending that after Lines 35 and 36, rather than requiring all to dispense emergency contraception, I would add a comma and then say provided no healthcare facility shall be forced to dispense emergency contraception in violation of its religious precepts and such facility shall not interfere with onsite provision of emergency contraception to such victim of sexual assault by a provider not employed by the healthcare facility.

So you're not forcing the religious precepts to be violated. You're also not allowing the religious precepts to block emergency treatment of a victim, who happens to show up at that facility because that's where they were taken after they were assaulted. I'm going to type this up for you. I think it's a real compromise--

REP. VILLANO: Will you hand it into the Clerk please?

REP. MUSHINSKY: --and I'll give it to the Clerk.

REP. VILLANO: Are there any questions? Representative Thompson.

REP. THOMPSON: Not a question, Mary, but I think one of the problems with that is the Church, I believe, considers the hospital as blessed ground and that may present a problem of on-site.

REP. MUSHINSKY: There's always ways to do this, and it can be, it can be worked out so that it's not officially part of the hospital, but I know there's ways to do this, and we just have write the language.

I can make another go at this for you Jack, but I think it is possible to compromise this. I'm certain of it. And, the Committee is all well-meaning folks and I think with respect for both positions, I think we can write this language. I want to keep working with you on it. Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: [inaudible - microphone not on] Let's take Ms. Patrice Petersen and then Ms. Jeanne Milstein.

PATRICE PETERSEN: Good afternoon, Representative Villano, Members of the Committee and a special hello to Senator Harris, who I'm proud to say is my State Senator. Hello, Senator Harris.

My name is Patrice Petersen, and I'm the Secretary/Treasurer of CSEA SEIU Local 2001. I'm also a special ed teacher in the Department of Mental Retardation and have been for over 28 years.

CSEA SEIU Local 2001 supports House Bill 7280, AN ACT CONCERNING AUTISM. On behalf of our many members, who are parents and grandparents of children and adults with autism, we encourage you to take this important step in providing services to adults with autism.

CSEA SEIU Local 2001 represents over 10,000 state and municipal employees and well over 12,000 retired state employees. So we represent a significant number of people here in the State of Connecticut.

CSEA also, as part of their group, represents the vocational counselors in the Vocational Rehab Division of the Division of Rehab Services.

For many years, the counselors have seen a steady increase in the number of people referred to them with the diagnosis of autism.

The voc rehab system has the ability and potential to provide vocational assessment and support for people to be employed at their full potential. However, time and time again these counselors are frustrated by the current system.

If a person requires ongoing supports, they cannot be provided through the Vocational Rehab Division so the counselors are put in the terrible position of telling people with autism, and their families, that no such services for them currently exist.

This is a terrible position for us to be put in when we know on top of that that the limited resources that are available through the federal government are extremely limited and it may take years for a person once they have turned 21 to even receive the funding for a basic assessment of their vocational skills.

This bill will provide the way to find the funding necessary to provide ongoing support by many people on the autism spectrum.

Please support the Connecticut citizens with autism, who need assistance to be successful and fully integrated members of our community. Thank you very much for your time.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you, Ms. Petersen. Thank you for your testimony. Jeanne Milstein.

JEANNE MILSTEIN: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee. My name is Jeanne Milstein, Child Advocate for the State of Connecticut. With your permission, Mr. Chairman, could I yield my time to a parent of a young adult with autism? The families have been--

REP. VILLANO: By all means.

JEANNE MILSTEIN: --waiting so patiently not only today--

REP. VILLANO: But we'd like to hear from you, too.

JEANNE MILSTEIN: --by year after year. I have submitted written testimony so again would like to yield my time to Maggie Casciato, who not only is a parent but started the very first support group in the State of Connecticut for individuals with high functioning, with autism. Thank you.

MAGGIE CASCIATO: First I want to thank Jeanne Milstein, who is a wonderful friend of ours, who is not only an advocate for children but also for the children's parents who sometimes are in deep crisis, and she understands this. Thank you so much, Jeanne.

My name is Maggie Casciato, and my husband I live in Bridgeport with our two sons, the older of whom, Tom, is 27 years old and has Asperger's syndrome, which is a form of high-functioning autism.

Tom is very bright, but has serious social skills deficits. For many years, my employer gave Tom a job in the mailroom, but when the company had to downsize in 2004, Tom was laid off and he has not found a job since. That's almost three years he's been living at home.

But our family is not unique in this situation. You will find that there are hundreds, if not a couple thousands of families in Connecticut who have adult children living at home and dependent on them.

Not because they don't have the mental capacity to work but because they don't have the professional support they need to work and live independently.

You have most certainly heard that many times already, I'm sure, that Connecticut is one of very few states in the country that still deny social services to adults on the autism spectrum unless they are retarded.

But recently this Legislature has taken a very important step to change the situation. Due to the long, hard work of Lois Rosenwald and her colleagues, the enlightened support of many of our state legislators like yourselves, and the cooperation of the DMR, we are now in the first year of a two-year pilot program.

It serves no more than 25 people in, only in the New Haven area, but when this pilot is finished, we will have extremely useful data telling us exactly what services our adults need, how often they need them, how much they'll cost, and how they'll benefit from them.

This pilot will serve as a template for expanding the services to others in the state after it's over. However, there is currently funding available only for the two years of the pilot.

We need to apply for a Medicaid waiver to continue and increase the funding so that others can be served. Not doing so is foolish, cruel and short-sighted.

Besides the fact that it is the fair and the right thing to do, it's even financially beneficial to provide support and appropriate services to our adults right now.

Without help many of these adults might end up in the social system anyway, for example, collecting welfare, public assistance or even being confined to a mental hospital or a prison.

It's incumbent upon us to do the right thing now to avoid more expense and less effective services later. Thank you very much for hearing this.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you both. I see no questions. Jeanne, thank you very much. Thank you. Our next speaker is Lynn Warner.

LYNN WARNER: Members of the Committee, good afternoon. I am Lynn Warner, the Executive Director of the Arc of Connecticut, a 54-year-old statewide advocacy organization for people with intellectual disabilities and their families.

We have 23 local chapters throughout the state that provide support, services and advocacy for individuals with intellectual disabilities. I am here today to testify on behalf on House Bill 7280, AN ACT CONCERNING AUTISM.

We are, of course, pleased that in 2006 the Connecticut Legislature approved the pioneering autism services pilot program, which provided support to 25 individuals with autism, but not intellectual disabilities through the Department of Mental Retardation.

To date the pilot is proving to be beneficial for the individuals receiving services, but this was only a first step. As you have heard and will hear, there are many people living with autism spectrum disorders or ASDs in Connecticut.

With appropriate supports most adults of ASDs could live productively and independent lives, including gainful employment.

For taxpaying citizens of Connecticut it is far less expensive to provide supports and services for job coaching, life skills and independent living opportunities then it is to maintain dependent citizens.

We encourage your to approve House Bill 7280 to provide a permanent funding stream for adults with ASDs. This would require the Commissioner of Department of Social Services in consultation with the Commissioner of DMR to take the necessary action to secure federal funding, thus ensuring long-term funding for these services while having a minimal fiscal impact on the state.

So nobody currently receiving services would have to go without or with less. Once funding is providing however, services need to be available.

Therefore, I am also in support of Senate Bill 1338, AN ACT CONCERNING A COST OF LIVING INCREASE FOR PRIVATE PROVIDERS OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES.

And as you are well aware, the Governor has proposed no COLA funding in either year for nonprofit provider agencies. In effect, the employees of these agencies are being asked to continue to do the very demanding work while taking a pay cut.

This type of inequity and insecurity will only lead to private providers losing their highly trained staff members to the lure of better paying jobs both in and out of the human service industry.

Additionally often low pay in the private sector forces staff members to work overtime or take a second job in order to support themselves and their families.

These circumstances are expensive, disheartening, and exhausting for providers but imagine the confusion, chaos, and highly disruptive environment it creates for the individuals they serve.

Staff members become surrogate families and there is no continuity or stability in these individuals lives.

We thank you for Senate Bill 1338 and House Bill 7280 and we urge you to vote favorably on both to ensure private sector can continue doing the outstanding work that it does for the vulnerable citizens of Connecticut. Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you, Ms. Warner. Thank you for your testimony. Julia Evans Starr.

JULIA EVANS STARR: Good afternoon, Representative Villano, Senator Harris, Representative Gibbons and all the distinguished Members of the Human Services Committee and all of you as well.

My name is Julia Evans Starr. I am the Executive Director of the Connecticut Commission on Aging. I also co-chair the Long-Term Care Advisory Council with Representative Villano and with the active involvement of many of you around this table.

The Commission on Aging is most interested in Connecticut's rebalancing efforts. What does that mean? We're trying to provide home and community-based service options for people of all ages.

Right now Connecticut is heavily institutionally biased and although we've made progress we're looking to shift that balance. How do we do so?

We need to breakthrough some service barriers. We need to affirm the statement of principle that you all passed two years ago that says that people have the right to chose the least restricted environment.

And we need to start thinking in terms of diversion initiatives. You had a hearing last week and during that hearing it was spoken that a lot of Legislators raised concern, why does someone need to be in a nursing home for six months before they are transitioned out, and so some of the bills before you today will actually take care of that concern.

I would like to echo the previous speaker Lynn's support for Raised Senate Bill 1338. Specific to Senate Bill 138, AN ACT CONCERNING APPROPRIATIONS TO THE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES AND AGRICULTURE, we strongly support the Choices Program.

They've done Yeoman's work in recent years with the outreach they've done with Medicare Part D. They've helped some 60,000 individuals, older adults and person with disabilities navigate that very complex Medicare Part D system.

That is not going to change but their funding status will. They received federal funding through a grant, a federal grant and that has now expired. We know the plans are going to remain complex.

We have more plans than we had in years past and each one of those plans can change with each year. So we desperately need the Choices Program to do some kind of outreach.

It's a way to let people know about their home and community-based options as well. And that's a way to divert people from nursing homes, which is one of our primary goals.

We also support elderly nutrition funding. If we don't pass this this year, last year you were kind enough to put forward a one year enhancement of $800,000. If that remains just a one year enhancement they will be receiving a significant cut.

Specific to Senate Bill 1395, AN ACT CONCERNING INDEPENDENT TRANSPORTATION NETWORKS, the Commission on Aging supports that tremendously and we want to see that self-sustaining transportation system for folks.

Very important means of transportation and all of you know it helps people get to where they want to go in a car and that's what makes it unique versus a van or a shuttle.

I'll wrap it up. A very important bill and I hope you look at my testimony specific to House Bill 7323. It does three very important things.

Many of them, actually a few pieces, defer people. If it weren't for these bills what's happening is people would end up in institutions.

We are for home and community-based services regardless of age. Section 1 helps people age 18 to 64 get the homecare program. They deserve that right. Right now that right is only for people 65 years of age and older.

We respect the work of the Long-Term Care on Ombudsman's Office and we would like to have people who reside in assisted living know that they have that as a resource to them through posting. That's all we ask.

Specific to the pilot for residential care homes, I ask that you strike the languages that says within available appropriations. We know that with that language in there it probably won't come to pass. That the Department of Social Services would take on that pilot.

That's a very important means to help people in residential care homes who receive a minor COLA with their pensions, their social security, often times they need to leave the residential care home because of that.

What happens is the only other option for them is a nursing home. So we want to create a pilot that helps people be able to remain where they are. That's really an important home and community-based option.

I thank you for your time and indulging me. Again, I would ask that you look at my testimony if you find the time. If you have any questions, please call my office.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you, Julie. Are there questions? If not, thank you very much for your testimony. We'll certainly read it back at the office.

Our next speaker is Constance Frishman. She's not here. Cristy Jones. Janet Stratton. David Klipper. Margaret McEvoy. Jeanne Miner. McEvoy, okay. Thank you for your patience.

MARGARET MCEVOY: Committee Members, thank you for allowing me to speak in favor of House Bill 7280 for Medicaid waivers for autism. First of all, I would like to express my thanks for the state for implementing the pilot program this year for autism spectrum adults.

I am the mother of a 23-year-old young woman named Shannon who was diagnosed with high-functioning autism. As with many autistic children, Shannon was eligible for services through the local school district.

The results of the services varied based on the individual staff's knowledge of autism. After high school graduation we were told that most services stop in the State of Connecticut unless the person's IQ is under 70.

Connecticut is only one of a few states that do not provide comprehensive appropriate services for those on the spectrum unless they have a low IQ.

Since Shannon graduated from the Morgan School in 2002 her needs are not being meant. This is not say that there are not caring people trying to help.

The Bureau of Rehabilitation Services, the only state agency she qualifies for has assisted her in the past obtaining part-time employment. However, it's not really lasted.

This past summer she applied on her own and got a part-time job at a local pharmacy however that only lasted three weeks as her condition caused her to have difficulties.

When BRS attempted to provide a job coach store policy would not permit it. Without the support Shannon failed. Recently BRS has done some vocational testing with her, which hopefully will provide some guidance.

Shannon has had some success. She can be very persistent in obtaining her goals. On the third time taking the driver's test she passed and received her license. She is in her last semester at Gateway Community College.

Hopefully she will be awarded an associate's degree this May. She likes to sing and join the chorale club in our Church's Young Adult Group. But her limitations are very real.

After college her future looks questionable. She wants to earn a living and be independent but she needs support. Autistic persons see the world differently than their narrow typical peers.

To navigate the world she and others like her need social skills training, independent living skills, career counseling, job coaching and peer support.

People with Asperger's syndrome, high functioning autism can be productive, taxpaying members of society if appropriate services are put into place.

Please support development of Medicaid waivers that could change my daughter's life and all those on the spectrum in this state for the better. Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you, Ms. McEvoy. Jeanne Miner. Beth Cvejanovich. Thank you.

JOHN CVEJANOVICH: I can always tell when my name is being called out. Good afternoon, ladies and gentleman. My name is John Cvejanovich. My wife Beth had to leave because she needed to take care of our 19-year-old autistic son, Robby.

We're here to support passage, as so many other are, of House Bill 7280. Our 18-year-old son, Robby, has Asperger's syndrome. And I'm reading her testimony.

Nonetheless, on January 2, 2007, I'm sorry, it was a very happy day in our house because when we opened the Connecticut section of the Hartford Courant there was Robby smiling from above with the caption Badges of Courage, A Scout with a form of Autism Overcomes Obstacles to become and Eagle.

With the help of a dedicated group of scout leaders and other troop members and with our help Robby was able to achieve the highest honor is Boy Scouts. This is an accomplishment that shows how much potential he has.

However, this very same Eagle Scout cannot drive a car because the visual stimuli that comes at him comes too fast and from all sides.

He cannot be trusted with a debit card because he has been known to pledge money to whatever charity is pitching to him over the radio or phone. He simply trusts everybody at their word.