Rell to sign or veto health care bills?

Hartford (WTNH) - Governor Jodi Rell must decide by Wednesday if she will sign or veto two bills designed to bring a form of universal health care to Connecticut.

One of the proposals would allow for pooling of the insurance plan that state employees get so that municipalities and small business owners could take part. The other called 'Sustinet' would establish a board to work on formulating a portable universal health care plan like Massachusetts.

Among those represented among the red shirts at the Capitol Tuesday was Representative Linda St. Peter of the 18,000 member Connecticut Association of Realtors ; they have generated hundreds of calls and e-mails to the Governor urging her to sign the two health care bills.

"Connecticut can't wait for health care that we can all count on," said St. Peter.

Kevin Galvin has seven employees in his commercial maintenance company. He's one of the 19,000 small business owners that has been phoning and e-mailing the Governor's office urging she sign the health care bills.

"We've never been able to have insurance for our employees; the margins are very low in our business line and insurance is just too expensive," Galvin said.

Juan Figueroa is head of a foundation that has been working on the two proposals for nearly five years and said the high cost of health care insurance is holding back many small businesses like Galvin's.

"Not accessible, particularly to small business, the backbone of states like Connecticut, in terms of their economy; you have a real problem," he said.

"Our business plan has shown us that in the last four-years we could have doubled the size of our business and the number of employees if we had affordable health care available as part of our employment package," said Galvin.

Governor Rell vetoed a version of the insurance pooling proposal last year; this year her only remarks about these two bills has been concerns about the cost.

"The fact of the matter is that these bills here were passed by a healthy enough margin to put a veto over-ride in real play," said Figueroa.

Galvin said the small business owners who have been generating all the phone calls and e-mails are ready to work on the over-ride attempt.

"They are fully ready to mobilize when they're called into action to talk to the legislature about it about turning the veto over," said Galvin.

If the Governor intends to veto the two bills she must do so by Wednesday or they will become law without her signature.