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Minnesota House of Representatives

State Representative Jim Davnie

445 State Office BuildingState Office Building
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
651-296-0173

For more information contact: Ted Modrich 651-296-5809

Posted: 2011-07-27 00:00:00
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HOUSE BRIEFS

Health care and disability services

Throughout the 2011 legislative session concerns were raised about the impact of reductions in funding for programs that serve individuals with disabilities. The final budget agreement that ended the state shutdown makes severe cuts to social services and public health care programs.

During the regular legislative session, the approach taken by the Health and Human Services (HHS) omnibus finance bill contained $1.8 billion in spending cuts. This would have been compounded by the loss of about $1.5 billion in federal matching funds. The bill included a repeal of the early MA program, significant cuts to Minnesota’s waivered services, and the elimination of health care coverage for over 125,000 Minnesotans. I opposed the HHS bill for this and many other reasons, and the Governor was right to veto it.

Although the Special Session HHS bill (House File 25) that was passed in the early hours of July 20 benefitted from the additional revenue and borrowing that was part of the budget agreement, it still contains a number of significant cuts. The bill preserves the early MA program and does not contain any of the most controversial policy provisions items from the earlier bill. However it does include numerous provisions related to programs that help people with disabilities.

• Various cuts to waivered services, including disability waiver enrollment limits and payment reductions, and Alternative Care and Elderly Waiver grant cuts
o The proposal to freeze waiver spending was removed
• Rate cut of 20 percent for Personal Care Assistant (PCA) care by relatives
• Provider services rate reduction of 1.5 percent effective July 1, 2011 (this rate reduction decreases to one percent effective July 1, 2013)
o The bill also contains an extensive managed care reform and a federal MA reform waiver proposal, with the possibility of additional provider rate reductions if federal waiver approval is not obtained by June 30, 2012
• Repeal of nursing home rebasing in FY14-15
• The My Life, My Choices task force proposal was not included

The final HHS budget bill contains over $1 billion in difficult cuts that will undoubtedly hurt the disabled. Just one piece of the HHS budget, the cuts to the waiver programs that benefit the elderly and disabled, amounts to over $200 million of cuts.

I voted against this bill and strongly believe that we can and must do better. For my part, I will continue to be a strong advocate for our communities’ core principles of economic fairness and protection of the more vulnerable members of our society.

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