Happy New Year!

December 30, 2025

Dear Neighbor,

I hope you and your loved ones had a wonderful holiday season filled with warmth, rest, and celebration. As your legislator, it is an honor to represent you, and I am thankful every day for the opportunity to serve our community. May the New Year bring you happiness, stability, and success in all your endeavors. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

In the rest of this week's eblast, you can read new laws effective Jan. 1, medical debt forgiveness, and more. You can click the links below to navigate between sections.

New Laws Effective January 1, 2026
Emergency Response Fund
Medical Debt Erased for 40,000 More Connecticut Residents
Local Events

New Laws Effective January 1, 2026

As we welcome a new year, several laws passed in the last legislative session will take effect on January 1, 2026.

These new measures address key issues impacting our state and its residents, including expanded incentives for farmers, strengthened protections for workers in sensitive professions, and improved reporting requirements to better track higher education enrollment, post-secondary credits, and student opportunities.

We took a major step forward in advancing policies that support new, diverse housing options across Connecticut. With some of the highest housing costs in the region, too many individuals and families are being priced out of the communities where they work, where they grew up, and where they hope to retire.

Preventative health care continues to be a priority because early detection saves both lives and long-term costs. To support this, we now require health insurers to cover certain high-priority biomarker tests that aid in early detection, prevention, and treatment. Additionally, we have prohibited the substitution of lower-priced drugs for higher-priced medications for individuals living with multiple sclerosis and arthritis, and we have made this ban permanent for medications used to treat mental health disorders.

You can click here to see the full list of new laws taking effect on January 1, 2026. Feel free to reach out to my office if you have any questions.

Emergency Response Fund

We passed a $500 million emergency response fund during November's special session to support residents facing harmful federal cutbacks from the Trump administration. Now, Governor Ned Lamont is putting a plan in motion to put that fund to use. His proposal calls for committing:

Tens of millions to offset cuts to Affordable Care Act subsidies
$24.5 million to support community food banks and pantries
Nearly $7 million to combat homelessness
$4.7 million for 2-1-1 to increase call volume and Community Action Agencies to support outreach and assistance for SNAP recipients

CLICK HERE to see the entire proposal.

Medical Debt Erased for 40,000 More Connecticut Residents

Gov. Ned Lamont announced recently that an additional 40,000 Connecticut residents will have their medical debts erased, part of an initiative launched in partnership with the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt to give relief to those struggling to pay medical bills.

This is the third round of the initiative, which has now eliminated $198 million for 160,000 Connecticut residents since Dec. 2024. The program's arrangement allows the debt to be forgiven at a fraction of its face value - typically costing a few pennies on the dollar.

Those affected by this program should have received a letter in the mail informing them of their debt forgiveness. There is no application process for this relief, and it cannot be requested.

Relieving tens of thousands of Connecticut residents from the stress of paying down burdensome medical debt will make a profound difference in their lives - especially in the holiday season.

You can read more about the program here and here.