BLOOMFIELD – State Sen. Ted Kennedy Jr. visited Cigna headquarters Thursday to celebrate the company’s commitment to hiring people with disabilities.
The Democrat from Branford also denounced the recent round of emergency cuts to the state budget ordered by Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy — including services that help people with disabilities stay in the workforce.
“These are the very programs that people with disabilities rely on to get training so they can seek active employment,” Kennedy said. “To me, this is a misguided type of way to balance the state budget.”
The Malloy administration, responding to a sharp downturn in the stock market and projections of lower tax revenue, this month ordered emergency spending cuts of $103 million.
The bulk of the reduction — $63.4 million — took the form of reduced Medicaid payments to hospitals. About $16 million was ordered cut from programs that serve people with mental illness, substance abuse issues and intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Kennedy, D-Branford, who lost a leg to childhood cancer, has long been an advocate disability rights. His father, U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., who died in 2009, was one of the chief sponsors of the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act, which banned workplace discrimination based on disability and required public accommodations for the disabled.
Kennedy is hardly alone among Democrats criticizing budget cuts, balanced Thursday morning at Cigna between highlighting the company’s efforts to hire and promote people with disabilities, and slamming the cuts.
“I’m not here to make a political speech but I do think we can all agree that every dime that we put into giving people the opportunity to get educated and to be employed is well worth it,” Kennedy said.
A spokesman for Malloy did not return a call seeking comment.
Kennedy and Cigna employees agreed the issue of employment for people with disabilities is deeper than can be addressed with laws and public spending.
“For many years historically in the United States, if you had a disability you were never expected to go to work, get an apartment, have a car, start a family,” Kennedy said.
His younger brother, Patrick Kennedy, is also an outspoken advocate for people with disabilities. Patrick, a former congressman from Rhode Island, struggled with addiction and other mental health issues and has written a new book detailing his family’s history of alcoholism.
Ted Kennedy has been critical of his brother’s decision to highlight his family history. He issued a statement this week calling the book “an inaccurate and unfair portrayal,” and declined to discuss the matter further Thursday.
The freshman state senator was joined by several Cigna employees, including Usman Ul Haque, who works information management and analytics at the company.
Born with shortened arms and legs, Haque uses a powered wheelchair and special equipment for his car. Although he has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UConn, he was unemployed and under-employed for long periods before landing his current job.
“My life hasn’t been without challenges,” Haque said. “I thought that the world was out to get me.”
He said he sometimes wonders whether employers are reluctant to hire people with disabilities because they don’t want to be bothered making accommodations for them. “I don’t define myself as someone who is disabled but it is part of me,” he said.
Mark Boxer, Cigna’s global chief information officer, said changing attitudes has proven harder than changing laws regarding disability rights. “The challenges and the barriers we face are not curb cuts,” he said. “They’re not elevators, they’re not doorways … the barriers are attitudinal. They’re in our head.”
