Enrollees, Advocates Urge Legislators to Protect MinnesotaCare in Advance of Floor Vote on House Omnibus HHS Finance Bill
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 28, 2015
Contact: Greta Bergstrom, Greta@takeactionminnesota.org, 651.336.6722
Elimination of Legacy Program Would Drive Up Costs for Worse Coverage, Lots of Uncertainty
St. Paul, MN – On Tuesday morning, MinnesotaCare enrollees and advocates gathered outside the House chamber at the Minnesota State Capitol to urge legislators to vote against the elimination of MinnesotaCare, proposed by Representative Matt Dean and the House GOP. If the program were to be abolished, over 100,000 working Minnesotans would lose their coverage and have to pay higher costs for much worse coverage and a whole lot of uncertainty. The plan is included in the Omnibus Health & Human Services Finance bill (S.F. 1458) which is under consideration and is expected to be debated on the House floor Tuesday afternoon.
Liz Doyle, TakeAction Minnesota’s Associate Director, said it was important to remember the tens of thousands of individuals who would face higher costs and lower quality coverage if MinnesotaCare were to be eliminated. “MinnesotaCare enrollees are hard-working Minnesotans making anywhere from eight to twelve dollars per hour, including farmers, graphic artists, servers, parents, self-employed, and caregivers to name just a few. These individuals, disproportionately concentrated in Greater Minnesota, cannot afford the cost increases and uncertainty that would occur should this harmful proposal to abolish MinnesotaCare happen. We urge legislators to vote against this harmful cut today.”
Doyle introduced two enrollees who attended Tuesday morning’s event and shared serious personal worries about House plans to end the MinnesotaCare program despite a $1.9 billion budget surplus. Ruth Fen, a graphic designer from South Minneapolis recounted going years without health coverage after losing her employer-sponsored insurance only to find affordable, comprehensive coverage through MinnesotaCare. Fen credits her eventual enrollment in MinnesotaCare with saving her thousands of dollars and “possibly my life, enabling me to be diagnosed with, and cured of, lymphoma.”
John Hesch, a MinnesotaCare enrollee from Minnetonka credits the program with helping him afford medications to manage his diabetes and ultimately, providing coverage for a toe amputation that landed him in the hospital for five weeks. “I don’t know anybody that can survive the costs of five weeks in the hospital without health coverage. I urge legislators today to vote against ending MinnesotaCare. It’s critical for working people around our state.”
MinnesotaCare disproportionately affects rural workers around the state – visually depicted Tuesday by an oversized statewide enrollment map advocates placed outside the House chamber. The top twenty five counties for per capita enrollment are all in Greater Minnesota, where workers are more likely to struggle to find living-wage jobs with health care benefits and many rely on MinnesotaCare for quality, affordable health care.
Paul Sobocinski, the Land Stewardship Project’s Policy Program Organizer, shared the experiences of workers in Greater Minnesota, including farmers, who continue to depend on MinnesotaCare program for high quality, dependable, affordable coverage. “It’s flat out wrong for rural legislators to even consider cutting MinnesotaCare when the counties with the highest percentage of people on MinnesotaCare are in Greater Minnesota. It is shocking that that they would do this to farmers, especially beginning farmers, and rural workers on the edge given that the state has a $2 billion surplus.”
Executive Director of the Minnesota Nurses Association, Rose Roach, talked about her organization’s long-standing commitment to affordable health care in the state. “The Minnesota Nurses Association was instrumental in securing the passage of the MinnesotaCare bill back in 1992.” Roach said her organization’s twenty-thousand members are united against repealing the MinnesotaCare program and replacing it with a yet undefined private market alternative which “would be a shock to many family budgets.”
MinnesotaCare is one of two state-administered public health care coverage programs in Minnesota currently serving over 100,000 Minnesotans. Started in 1992, MinnesotaCare is paid for with a combination of federal funds, the state provider tax, and premium contributions paid for by individual enrollees. Premium levels are dependent on income, with the highest premium of fifty dollars per month. MinnesotaCare is considered a “Basic Health Plan” under the federal Affordable Care Act.
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