SOUTHINGTON — Sen. Chris Murphy heard the concerns of middle-schoolers and manufacturers Friday as he paid visits to DePaolo school and Smiths Medical.
Murphy spoke to 250 eighthgrade students in auditorium of the school at 385 Pleasant St. He began by sharing with the students how he came to become involved in politics.
A former town resident, Murphy, once served on the local Planning & Zoning Commission before going on to the State House of Representatives, the state senate, the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate where he now serves.
“I was a part of a river cleanup crew back when the environmental movement was really starting back up again,” said Murphy. “One day I thought to myself ‘why are we doing this? Shouldn’t someone from the government be doing something about it?’ Then I started paying attention to who was running for office and me, along with a group of 15- and 16- year-old friends, started knocking on doors for those candidates who cared about what we cared about.”
“I was 21 when I ran for the state legislature,” Murphy continued. “I was up against someone who had been there for 14 years. My advantage was that he assumed I wasn’t a threat until it was already too late. I knocked on every door in town twice and won over voters while he was doing nothing. People paid attention to me because I was young. Young people have a tremendous ability to make change in ways that people twice or three times your age don’t. No change has ever occurred in this country without the youth fighting for it.”
Murphy then shared his concerns over global warming and encouraged the assembled youth to help combat it.
“The world is warming at an extraordinary rate,” he said. “I visited a research facility in the arctic and took a submarine below the ice to learn how fast it was melting. The next week, they were evacuating the camp because the ice was melting out from under it. Most figures suggest that the world will be 6 to 8 degrees hotter by the end of the century. Many of you will be alive to see that, and most of your children will. People are saying that if we don’t fix it now, it can’t be stopped.”
Following his presentation, Murphy then took questions from the audience on a variety of topics.
One student asked Murphy how he felt about insurance companies cutting off coverage for people’s hearing aids once they reached 14-years-old. Murphy said he would research the issue and “put it on his agenda” because it “didn’t make sense.” This earned wild applause and cheers from the crowd.
“I’m constantly battling with insurance companies to encourage them to cover more things,” he said. “They are necessary, but they are in the business to make money. They spend as little on health care as they can get away with, denying care to make a profit.”
McKenzie, a student, asked what sort of characteristics a senator should have. Murphy replied, they should have a lot of energy, love people and be thick-skinned.
Another student, Luca, asked Murphy what he would do about bringing jobs to Connecticut and keeping them there, citing General Electric’s recent move to Massachusetts.
“At my level, I set policy for the whole country,” he said. The way I can help is by writing laws that dis-proportionally benefit Connecticut. I started the ‘Buy American’ movement to require the Department of Defense to purchase from American companies rather than from oversees, and Connecticut has a lot of military manufacturers. I’ve also fought for more money for transportation. We have a dense population and roads are always choked up.”
Another student asked Murphy what he thought about working with Republicans.
“I love working with Republicans, I really do,” he said. “If you want to get anything done in Washington today, you need Republican and Democrat support. I co-sponsored a mental health bill with Bill Cassidy, a T.E.A. Party conservative from Louisiana, and I’m a progressive Democrat from the Northeast. The idea was to show that while the two of us don’t agree on a lot of issues, we can agree on this. Some people think that compromise is weakness, but I think that while you have to fight for what you believe in, you also have to recognize when it’s the right time to compromise.”
Murphy concluded the presentation by encouraging students to reach out to him on social media and to fight for the change they wanted to see in the world. Murphy later complimented the students on their “fantastic” questions.
“I really liked to hear him say that young people can make a difference,” said student Kathryn Kubisek.
“It was really interesting,” said another student, Brett Langland. “I liked how when he was still young he was able to get together with his friends and promote a change. It got me thinking about how dirty Crescent Lake is and how I could go out with some friends and do something similar.”
Chris Palmieri, Town Councilor and assistant principal at the school, thanked Murphy for coming.
“Our kids asked phenomenal questions and it’s great to know that he will follow up on them,” he said.
“Sen. Murphy set an excellent example for students today,” said Tim Connellan, superintendent of schools. “He was personable, down to earth and approachable. That’s what I like to see in our leaders.”
Later, Murphy stopped in to Smiths Medical at 201 W. Queen St. Company representatives discussed with him the impact of The Affordable Care Act on their medical product manufacturing business.
“The Medical Device Tax put a halt on some of our plans when it took $2-million off of our bottom line,” said Jeff Bowen, site coordinator. “We had just saved ourselves $1 million with a vertical integration project but this took it all away.”
Bowen added that while his goal is to remain in Connecticut, a move to Mexico would cut costs in half.
“While it would be a big initial investment, it remains an attractive jump,” he said. “Still, I would rather that we are able to succeed here and my No. 1 priority is to keep jobs here. I enjoy being here and being a charitable member of the community, but eventually the costs of operation might make that impossible.”
“The end result of the Affordable Care Act is that 20 million people get more access to insurance,” said Murphy. “Still, there are a lot of us who would be willing to pull back on that tax and search for another source of revenue.”
Murphy later toured the facility to see how ViaValve Safety IV Catheters, which provide blood control to help reduce the risk of blood exposure and contamination, were produced.
Matthew Rousseau, materials manager with Smiths Medical, said the facility manufactures 2 million to 2.2 million of the catheters each week, which are sold “mostly in the U.S.”
“The product is designed to prevent accidental needle sticks,” he said. “Once taken out, the needle is sheathed so that people can’t accidentally stick themselves. It hasn’t quite caught on yet in developing countries because this safety feature means that it is a higher-cost product.”
