Getting "Connection refused. Check that the hostname and port are correct and that the postmaster is accepting TCP/IP connections" when connecting via jdbc

Hi, I am using JDBC to connect to a Postgres DB.  I am calling a method that connects to the DB twice.  It connects once to do a select statement and another time to do an insert statement.  I am checking to see if the a session_id exists and if it doesn't I am adding the session_id into the DB.   It does the initial select fine, but when I try to connect the second time to do the insert I am getting the error in the title above. Here is what my code looks like.  Can anyone help me out with resolving this?

private void initialInsert(String sessionId) {

		try {
			Class.forName("org.postgresql.Driver");
		} catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
			log.info("Class Not Found: " + e.getMessage());
		}
		log.info("Entering the initial insert");
		String sessionIdFromDB = "";
		String url = "jdbc:postgresql://10.233.52.71:5432/CustomersLikeYou";
		Properties props = new Properties();
		props.setProperty("user", "itrd");
		props.setProperty("password", "itrd");
		Connection conn = null;
		ResultSet rs = null;
		try {
			log.info("Entering select");
			conn = DriverManager.getConnection(url, props);
			Statement statement = conn.createStatement();
			rs = statement.executeQuery(
					"select session_id from public.individual_customer where session_id = '" + sessionId + "'");
			log.info("Succeful select");
			while (rs.next()) {
				if (StringUtils.isNotEmpty(rs.getString("session_id"))) {
					sessionIdFromDB = rs.getString("session_id");
				}
			}

		} catch (SQLException e) {
			log.info(e.getMessage());
		} finally {
			if (conn != null) {
				try {
					conn.close();
				} catch (SQLException e) {
					log.info(e.getMessage());
				}
			}
			if (rs != null) {
				try {
					rs.close();
				} catch (SQLException e) {
					log.info(e.getMessage());
				}
			}
		}

		try {
			log.info("Entering insert");
			conn = DriverManager.getConnection(url, props);
			Statement statement = conn.createStatement();

			if (StringUtils.isEmpty(sessionIdFromDB)) {
				// insert session id
				statement.executeUpdate(
						"insert into public.individual_customer (session_id) values '" + sessionId + "'");
			}
			log.info("Successful insert");
		} catch (SQLException e) {
			log.info(e.getMessage());
		} finally {
			if (conn != null) {
				try {
					conn.close();
				} catch (SQLException e) {
					log.info(e.getMessage());
				}
			}
			if (rs != null) {
				try {
					rs.close();
				} catch (SQLException e) {
					log.info(e.getMessage());
				}
			}
		}

	}