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State Representative Jeanne Poppe
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
651-296-4193
For more information contact: Sandy Connolly 651-296-8877
NEWS COLUMN
Proposed cuts to health care threaten rural Minnesota
There is good reason to be concerned about the current state of health care in rural Minnesota. The challenges are coming from many fronts and will result in fewer people with health care coverage, fewer hospitals and clinics, and fewer doctors and dentists for Greater Minnesota.
Under the administration's budget proposal, 18,000 working individuals in Greater Minnesota will lose their MinnesotaCare health care coverage. In fact, the cuts are so deep that a part-time worker earning the minimum wage of $5.15 per hour would make too much to qualify for that coverage.
The Governor's proposal will cut adults without children from MinnesotaCare. In Mower County there are close to 300 adults who fall into this category. Fillmore County has another 140. Unless they make less than $580 a month or have health care expenses that bring their income down to that level, they will be cut. This isn't a free hand-out; these are working people who will no longer have the option of buying coverage under this proposal.
On top of that, only 38 percent of the employers in Greater Minnesota can afford to provide health benefits to their workers, something that is only going to get worse over the next few years as options for coverage vanish.
When people lose their health care coverage, they often delay seeking treatment when they first get sick. Instead, the emergency room becomes the first stop for health care. This level of care is more expensive and often goes uncompensated. These unpaid for visits hurt the hospitals and increase all of our insurance premiums and health care costs.
These kinds of problems have caused 23 hospitals in Minnesota to close since 1991, which has resulted in a loss of 1,594 hospital beds, and more could be lost in the next couple of years. According to the Minnesota Department of Health, one-fourth of the 119 hospitals in Greater Minnesota are operating in financial distress—meaning they are either operating at a loss or they have such a small operating margin that they cannot afford to do routine capital improvements to the facility.
To add insult to injury, the administration is also proposing cuts of almost $56 million in payments to hospitals, resulting in the loss of another $40 million in matching Federal funds. Greater Minnesota hospitals alone will absorb roughly $37 million of the $96 million in total cuts.
If the current budget is passed, the impact on the Austin Medical Center will be almost $670,000. This is in addition to a reduction of over $961,000 with the previous budget.
There is a also a growing shortage of physicians, health care professionals and clinics in Rural Minnesota, giving us dwindling access to health care. In the Twin Cities, there is one physician for every 830 residents, while in Rural Minnesota the ratio is one for every 1,430 residents. Thirty counties and a portion of 20 additional counties in Greater Minnesota have been designated by the federal government as Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs). (To qualify as an HPSA, an area must have less than one physician for every 3,500 residents.) Dentists are in even shorter supply than physicians (one for every 1,820 residents) and most clinics and hospitals are having a hard time finding nurses, lab technicians and other health care workers to fill openings.
So, let's look at this administration's budget proposal. It reduces the number of people eligible to buy MinnesotaCare coverage and cuts payments to hospitals to the tune of $96 million, $37 of that to rural hospitals. This is not an answer to the growing health care crisis our state is facing. Instead of cutting people, we need to be looking for ways to increase the number of Minnesotans with health care coverage. We also need to improve access to health care in rural areas and help strengthen the financial foundation at rural health care facilities. We need to have more options on the table than just budget cuts upon previous budget cuts.
In order to provide the latest information to the residents in my district, I have started an email newsletter that will provide periodic updates on what is happening here at the Capitol. If you are interested in receiving this newsletter, please email me at rep.jeanne.poppe@house.mn and your name will be added to our list.
Please feel free to call or write if you have ideas or concerns you want to share about state or local issues. I can be reached by phone at 1-888-682-3180 or 1-651-296-4193, by mail at 231 State Office Building, 100 Martin Luther King Blvd., St. Paul, MN 55155 or via e-mail at the above address.
News Items
- POPPE SELECTED AS AGRICULTURE POLICY COMMITTEE CHAIR - (Posted: 2012-11-16 00:00:00)
- Rep. Jeanne Poppe Encourages High School Juniors to Apply for Minnesota House of Representatives Page Program - Application Deadline is November 19th - (Posted: 2012-11-12 00:00:00)
- HORMEL INSTITUTE EXPANSION SIGNED INTO LAW - 2012 legislative session adjourns sine die - (Posted: 2012-05-11 00:00:00)
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