Take Action Now to Control Your Medical Records!

A proposed bill in Connecticut needs your help getting out of the Public Health Committee so it can go to the House and Senate for a vote. House Bill 5737, “An Act Concerning the Use of Patient Health Care Information in the All-Payer Claims Database Program,” would protect your privacy by giving you the right to chose whether or not your information is included in the state’s All-Payer Claims Database, which collects, stores, and uses information from health care claims

You should be able to decide how and by whom your sensitive health information is used. Let your legislators know that having control over your medical data is important to you by contacting them and encouraging them to support HB 5737. You can see a full list of the Public Health Committee members and how to contact them here. To contact your own district Representative or Senator to ask them to vote for the bill, you can follow this link to find out who represents you.

Is Discrimination Against Women Okay in CT Legislature?

At first it might seem like a silly question but in view of the Ernest Hewett situation, it needs to be asked.

This is what CT. State Representative Ernest Hewett ACTUALLY said in defending his now infamous “snake under my desk” comment.

According to The Hartford Courant, the New London Democrat told the paper that he

"purposely will not have female interns. My intern now is a male. I want to keep it like that. I've had female interns in the past that sit in my office all day. I thought it was totally weird and I didn't want another."
"That's why I was so leery about staying away from interns," he told The Courant. "I don't know what they're going to give me. They may give me a female, but I don't want a female intern. That may sound sexist but I really don't. That way that keeps me good and that keeps everybody else good." Read full story here

To me, the above statements sound really outrageous, offensive, archaic, and sexist. In fact the word Neanderthal comes to mind.   

But I could be wrong so let us do a small experiment and flip it around a bit and pretend that the legislator in question is a white Republican and the intern in question is black. In that case the statement would read as follows.

According to The Hypothetical paper, the imaginary Republican told the paper that he

"purposely will not have black interns. My intern now is a white. I want to keep it like that. I've had black interns in the past that sit in my office all day. I thought it was totally weird and I didn't want another."
"That's why I was so leery about staying away from interns," he told The Hypothetical. "I don't know what they're going to give me. They may give me a black, but I don't want a black intern. That may sound racist but I really don't. That way that keeps me good and that keeps everybody else good."

Would these imaginary comments be okay if they were uttered by a sitting Connecticut lawmaker? Or would they be viewed as outrageous, offensive, archaic, and racist?

If so, then why are the very real comments above that were actually put forth by State Representative Ernest Hewett being ignored, particularly by the many women who are serving and working in and around the Connecticut Legislature?

Is discrimination against women okay in the CT Legislature?
Or does it depend on who is doing the discriminating?