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State Representative Matt Dean
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
651-296-3018
For more information contact: House GOP Communications 651-296-5520
NEWS COLUMN
What kind of health care system does Washington County want?
Two weeks ago, the Minnesota Management and Budget Office released the revised February budget forecast. Their numbers show a new projected deficit of $6.4 billion; a figure that is up sharply from the $4.8 billion deficit forecast in November. With the release of the report the state legislature can finally get to work setting the state’s spending priorities and balancing the budget: a task that many of my colleagues and I have been waiting for two months to begin.
While one of those priorities - education spending - makes up the largest percentage of the state’s biennial expenditures (40% of this year’s $34.5 billion budget), the fastest growing portion of the budget continues to be health and human services spending. If you were to add the nearly $2 billion in federal stimulus dollars earmarked for Medicaid spending that Governor Pawlenty has factored in to his budget proposal - funding which will go away by 2012 - Minnesota health and human services spending is set to explode. Because health care spending is growing so rapidly, balancing the deficit will more than likely involve some form of cuts to services and programs.
Understanding that this would probably be the situation we found ourselves in during the 2009 legislative session, I spent last summer and fall talking to constituents and surveying the district with a health care survey in order to get a better understanding of how potential policy changes and cuts to the health and human services budget might affect citizens in Washington county. Also, I wanted to compare - at least roughly - how survey respondents in our community compared with national and state averages when it comes to health insurance and the rising cost of finding coverage.
The results that came back to my office in St. Paul showed that Washington county residents generally get their health insurance from the same places that the rest of Minnesotans do. I also found that the vast majority of residents are generally satisfied with the health care coverage they have and are overwhelmingly opposed to a government run universal health care system.
The most important factor in most respondents opinion was the ability to choose and keep the physician and clinic of their choice.
Minnesota is annually ranked as one of the healthiest states in the nation. And not only do we have one of the most generous public assistance health care programs in the country, we also have one of the lowest percentages of uninsured citizens anywhere. According to a January 2009 Issue Brief from the Minnesota Department of Health, 67% of Minnesotans are insured through the private sector (whether through their employer or on their own); my survey came back with 77% of respondents carrying private insurance. That kind of investment in private sector health care plans would be nearly impossible to replicate through government programs and would carry a price tag that would quickly run in the many billions of dollars. Wisconsin’s State Senate passed a government-run program that would cost the Badger state $15 billion to implement. That’s roughly our state’s entire annual budget.
Fixing the current economic mess will depend on home prices and the stock market stabilizing, and the government correcting its mismanagement of banks. Imposing big government solutions in healthcare will only make the current economic crisis worse, artificially extend the recession (now in its 15th month) and give Minnesotans the solution to a problem we do not have with a price we cannot afford.
I, along with several House and Senate Republicans and Democrats want to build on the success Minnesota has shown in the area of healthcare innovation and excellence in care. To do that, we need to be freed from the red-tape and mediocrity of our federal systems. Federal healthcare and welfare programs are poor models for delivering high quality, low cost care. Yet in order to accept federal dollars for our programs, we have to spend the money the way Washington wants us to. There are only a handful of states that can deliver healthcare at a lower cost than we do in Minnesota. No one delivers higher quality. Minnesota should serve as a model for the nation for healthcare reform and if we cannot spend the federal stimulus money as we need to, we should say “no thanks.”
There are some good uses of federal stimulus dollars, such as the extension of COBRA benefits and others that may cause some economic stimulus. However, much of the proposed help will come in a manner that will only put the state in further economic hardship and take a step backward in the way we deliver healthcare.
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- State Rep. Dean Reacts to St. Croix Bridge Decision - (Posted: 2010-03-15 00:00:00)
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