Uncertain fate awaits Minnesota’s health plan for the working poor
The fate of a key state program that provides health coverage to low-income Minnesotans appears uncertain as the state begins serious efforts to implement the federal health care reform law.
The program, called MinnesotaCare, provides subsidized insurance to about 130,000 of the state’s working poor. Aspects of the current program make it incompatible with higher standards included in federal health care reform, which many states will race to enact before the 2014 deadline.
Advocates for the poor are concerned that without MinnesotaCare or a similar state solution in place, those served by the program could fall through the cracks once its federal waiver runs out at the end of the year.
