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First "Howard I. Mark" Awards
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Patricia Baker and Jamey Bell
This year, the COHI Board of Directors established a new honor, the Howard I. Mark Advocate for Oral Health Award.
The award recognizes individuals whose personal devotion and commitment to advocating for increased access to oral health care have made a significant difference in Connecticut. In this way, they promote the values and philosophy of Howard I. Mark, DMD, COHI's founder and Board President.
Howie, as most of us know him, has focused his career, and his life, on promoting oral health. It is extremely appropriate that this award is named after him. His leadership and dedication to others has made a tremendous impact in improving access to oral health care in Connecticut and beyond.
Pat Baker, CEO of the Connecticut Health Foundation (CHF),is one of the most influential people regarding the state of oral health in Connecticut. She and CHF have provided critically important support and resources to advancing research, policy and practice in oral health. The results have been a wide range of important studies and initiatives that have yielded data and ideas as well as practical changes to the way providers communicate, coordinate and provide oral health care.
Pat is the founding President of CHF, the state's largest independent, non-profit, grant-making foundation dedicated to improving the health of the people of Connecticut through systemic change, program innovation and health policy analysis. For nearly ten years, Pat has been dedicated to promoting learning both locally and nationally around oral health issues.
Pat and CHF have invested strategically to deepen our understanding about our current system of oral health care, the status of oral health among Connecticut residents and strategies that might help to improve it.
Before joining CHF, Pat was the National Program Director for the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation and was Director of Connecticut Government Programs at Oxford Health Plans. She is a long-time women's health advocate and also served as the Executive Director of Planned Parenthood of Connecticut after moving here from the Midwest.
Jamey Bell is an attorney for Greater Hartford Legal Aid, a nonprofit legal services agency whose mission is: to achieve equal justice for poor people, to work with clients to promote social justice, and to address the symptoms and root causes of poverty. Jamey is one of the lead attorney-advocates on a class action lawsuit that seeks to enforce federal law requiring that the state provide the same access to prompt, local dental care for Medicaid managed care recipients that people with private insurance have. The class includes approximately 300,000 children and their parents.
Since 2000, Jamey has worked tirelessly on this case that is finally reaching settlement now. This settlement means that dramatically improved access to dental services is on the horizon for the 210,000 children she represents. Through increased reimbursement rates, translating to more dentists seeing HUSKY children, these kids will have access to oral health care on a par with those lucky enough to have private dental insurance. Jamey is also a long time member of COHI's board of directors.
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Oral Health Champions Honored
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Three State legislators were recently honored as "Champions of Oral Health" at the recent COHI Annual Meeting.
(From left to right: COHI President Howard Mark, Senator Toni Harp, COHI Vice-President Robin Knowles and Senator Johnathan Harris. Not pictured: Representative Denise Merrill)
They received the award before an audience of 150 oral health supporters because of their continuing commitment to advancing oral health by increasing HUSKY dental reimbursement rates that have been frozen since 1993 for children and since 1989 for adults in Connecticut, insisting that oral health be included in any health care reform, and making sure that the state use resources wisely to these ends. All three of these legislators have a fundamental connection and dedication to making sure that all Connecticut residents have access to quality health care.
Senator Toni Harp is Deputy President Pro Tempore, Chair of Appropriations for the Connecticut Senate. Vice-Chair of the legislature's Select Committee on Children and serves on the Executive and Legislative Nominations Committee. Senator Harp is now serving her eighth term representing the 10th Senatorial District of New Haven and North Haven.
During her tenure as a state lawmaker, Senator Harp has proven her unwavering dedication to a range of initiatives important to her constituents including managed care reform and providing insurance for uninsured children. She has been an active public health advocate for as long as she's been a public official. Promoting community health centers, funding pediatric dental care initiatives, expanding access to healthcare, and protesting increased co-payments and insurance premiums for the economically disadvantaged only begin the list of issues to which she has dedicated her efforts.
During the last session, she championed the increase of $20 million to the HUSKY dental reimbursement rates and advocated strongly during final budget negotiations with the Governor's office to make sure that it remained in the budget and that it be dedicated to the purpose of increasing services to HUSKY children.
Named 'the conscience of the Senate' in 1996, she has received many awards and honors. The Connecticut State Medical Society honored her for her 'advocacy on behalf of patients' and again more recently for her record of 'preserving and enhancing quality medical care.'
Senator Harp has contributed to the advancement of health policy and programs at the national level as well. She is the former chairperson of the National Conference of State Legislatures' standing committee on Health where she had the responsibility of reviewing policy, coordinating lobby strategies, and presiding over programs throughout the U.S. Earlier this year, the American Medical Association recognized her with their prestigious 'Dr. Nathan Davis Award for Outstanding Government Service'.
Senator
Jonathan Harris is the Assistant Majority Leader and Chair of
Human Services for Connecticut's
Senate. He has represented the fifth Senatorial District of West
Hartford, Bloomfield, Burlington
and Farmington
since 1994.
Senator Harris was previously the Mayor of West Hartford in
which capacity he worked to 'reinvent town government' and advance property tax
reform. He has a long record of community service and was honored by the CT
Association of Non-Profits in 2006 as one of their 'legislators of the year'
for his commitment to nonprofits.
Even though he has had a relatively short stint in the
General Assembly, he has jumped into the fray on behalf of Connecticut children who are suffering due
to lack of oral health care. During last year's legislative session Senator
Harris was instrumental in making sure that oral health was included in every
bill brought up about universal health care and increased coverage within the
Human Services Committee.
Representative
Denise Merrill has represented the 54th House District including
Chaplin and Mansfield for eight terms. She is in her second term as House Chair
of the Appropriations Committee. Representative Merrill has served on the
Education and Higher Education Committees for over a decade.
Representative Merrill has a long record of service to
children and families. She was once the Director of the Training Academy
of the Child Health and Development Institute of CT where she developed best
practice models for child care providers, pediatricians, parents and others
involved with young children. She has also actively championed a number of
women's issues including mandatory insurance coverage for contraceptives and
breast cancer detection, and access to emergency contraception for rape
victims. She is the former Co-President of the Women's Campaign
School at Yale University
and a former member of the State Board of the League of Women Voters.
Representative Merrill is also a former high school teacher.
She has been a dedicated advocate of her alma mater, the University of Connecticut, which is located in her
district and has been very active on issues of education and higher education
as a legislator. Representative Merrill spearheaded the School Readiness and
the Early Reading Success legislation in 1997 and 1998. A leader in passing
'UConn 2000', a program to refurbish and rebuild the UConn campus, she has received numerous awards
for her work in education. Her work has earned her recognition at the national
level. The National Conference of State Legislatures named her as Co-Chair of their Blue Ribbon Commission on
Higher Education which was formed to make recommendations on affordability and
access, and appointed her to their Executive Committee in 2006.
She
and Senator Harp worked very closely as co-leaders of the General Assembly's
Appropriations Committee in getting $20 million new dollars into the final
budget this past session and gaining agreement from the executive branch that
these funds would be focused exclusively on providing access to oral health
care for children in the HUSKY program. Representative Merrill is a friend to children, families and oral health advocates across the state.
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Cuts Proposed to Medical Interpretation
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The Hartford Courant
2/19/08 (AP) Advocates for state Medicaid patients who need
interpreters say they worry that cuts in Gov. M. Jodi Rell's budget
proposal could jeopardize access to crucial services and information. 
Health care case managers, social service providers and some
legislators say they will urge Rell and the General Assembly to protect
funding for the translation service, which helps Medicaid patients with
limited proficiency in English.
Although many of these patients
are native Spanish speakers, a coalition advocating for the translators
said that about 22,000 patients statewide who speak a total of 65
languages need the service.
Rell's budget proposal recommends eliminating $4.7 million that had
been set aside for the translation services in the 2008-09 budget,
which the General Assembly approved last year. Read the Full Story . . . |
About COHI
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The
Connecticut Oral Health Initiative, or COHI for short, is a state-wide
collaborative of dental professionals, business and community leaders.
Our Mission is Oral Health for All. We work to persuade, educate
and inform decision makers and the general public about the important
issues involving oral health. We started in 1992 as a project of the
Connecticut State Dental Association and incorporated as a separate
501(c)(3) non-profit corporation in 2003. We are supported by your
tax-deductible contribution and grants from progressive foundations and
businesses.
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