For immediate release
September 11, 2025
Health Advocacy and Disability Groups Urge Governor and Legislative Leaders to Call Special Session to Address Federal Changes to Medicaid/ACA Subsidies and DSS Call Center in Time to Meet Increasing Processing Burdens
24 Groups Call on Legislature to Act Now to Address Extreme Delays in Reaching the Essential Call Center for Medicaid and SNAP, Resulting in Over Half of Callers Giving Up. In light of Lengthy Lead Time to Hire and Train New Call Center Workers, They Urge the Legislature to Now Require Hiring and Training to be Completed Prior to New Required Reporting Going into Effect
Disability Rights Connecticut (DRCT) and Connecticut Legal Services (CLS), along with 22 other health and disability advocacy organizations, are calling on Governor Ned Lamont, House Speaker Matthew Ritter and Senate President Martin Looney to call a special session of the legislature to address the changes to Medicaid eligibility under HR 1 that will affect Connecticut residents with disabilities.
In a letter sent today to the Governor and legislative leaders, they explain that while many of the changes do not go into effect until the fall of 2026 or January of 2027, some of them are effective much sooner, including just a few months from now in January 2026.
The organizations also emphasize in their letter the new federal Medicaid enrollee reporting requirements for the very large HUSKY D population of about 340,000 people - these individuals will be subject not only to twice yearly redeterminations (currently this need only be done once per year) but also to new work or work exemption reporting requirements: individuals with disabilities will need to regularly demonstrate either that they are working or volunteering 80 hours per month or that they are exempt from these requirements because of a medical condition, being a caregiver for a family member or otherwise.
While these new reporting requirements do not go into effect until January 2027, the organizations explain in their letter that these new requirements to stay enrolled will place new burden on the call center run by Connecticut’s Department of Social Services (DSS), which is already stretched: “[F]or July, the last month for which there is data on the DSS website dashboard, the average wait time for tier one calls was at 51 minutes and the call abandonment rate for tier one was 53%, i.e., well over half of callers just give up, do not speak to a human, and do not have their needs met. DSS Eligibility Operations (EO) Public Dashboard (July 2025).
The letter explains further that, per DSS, “it will take at least 9 months and possibly a year to both hire the necessary new staff and adequately train them to be able to fully assist Medicaid enrollees with all aspects of Medicaid and SNAP eligibility maintenance,” and therefore, if the agency is not required now to start the major hiring process, it will be impossible to handle the onslaught of new calls from Medicaid enrollees in January, 2027.
The organizations ask specifically for two actions to be taken during a special legislative session:
(1) to protect very low income (under 100% of the federal poverty level) legal immigrants with disabilities who are scheduled to lose all of their exchange subsidies on December 31, 2025, and therefore all health insurance coverage; and
(2) that DSS be subject to the same call center timeliness standards it imposes on its own contractors, noting that its Connecticut Medicaid administrative services contractor, CHNCT, is required to “answer 90% of calls with a live person within sixty (60) seconds.”
“The current wait times to reach a person who can assist you at DSS call center are terrible, and the main reason is because it lacks the staff to meet the need that exists. People are waiting an hour or even two hours to get through and many give up. This is a crisis now and will only worsen when the changes from HR1 roll out, such as work requirements. Work requirements will double the number of redeterminations each year for our fellow residents enrolled in Husky D,’ commented Kristen Noelle Miller Hatcher, the Managing Attorney for the Benefits Unit of CLS.
Sheldon Toubman, Litigation Attorney with DRCT, indicated that “While Connecticut officials are appropriately working on systems to try to improve on that experience, the reality is that regularly establishing either that you are working or that you are exempt from working will be a major challenge and a human touch will be essential for many.”
Toubman emphasized that “An accessible call center where people can timely reach a knowledgeable person to get help to stay on benefits is necessary to prevent what we saw in other states. And keep in mind that the same reason a person is unable to work may be the reason they cannot wait on hold for two hours, and that working people cannot take off two hours in the middle of the day to do this either. This must be addressed now before many people start falling through cracks beginning in 15 months.
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Media contact:
Sheldon Toubman, sheldon.toubman@disrightsct.org, 475-345-3169
