MNsure should be renamed UNsure, because that's how folks are feeling as they face another year of dramatic cost increases thanks to our broken health care exchange.
After the Department of Commerce and MNsure released its rate increases last month, I have been hearing from people all across my district about how their family's budget cannot continue to absorb rising monthly premiums. For many folks in Northwest Minnesota, those increases are more than 50 percent, and that doesn't even include skyrocketing deductibles and expensive co-pays. People are frustrated with our broken health care exchange, and they have every right to be.
Governor Dayton and Democrat legislators who crafted our Obamacare exchange promised 413,000 enrollees and hundreds of dollars a year in cost savings for Minnesotans in exchange for a substantial $200 million (and counting) taxpayer investment to build and operate MNsure. Instead, with a mere 60,000 sign-ups and ever rising costs, MNsure has given us nothing but one broken promise after another.
Northwest Minnesota in particular has been hit hard, as costs have jumped significantly since MNsure became a dysfunctional reality in 2014. For example, the monthly premium for a Gold Plan has gone up 54 percent for the average 25 to 60 year old, and for a family of four, that increase is a whopping 58 percent or $381 per month.
That's a lot of money and a real chunk of your income going toward health care each month. Those kinds of rate increases are neither affordable nor realistic for people in our community.
While Obamacare is a federal law that cannot be overturned by our state, Minnesota Republican state legislators did what they could last year to check MNsure and limit cost increases. During the 2015 legislative session, for instance, we passed legislation to improve MNsure's transparency and lower rates by increasing access and competition in health care. Unfortunately, those common sense reforms were rejected by Governor Dayton, even though it would have resulted in significant taxpayer savings.
So as we face another year of skyrocketing health care costs thanks to expensive federal and state mandates, I'd like you to know that I share your frustrations. I will continue to work with and try to convince fellow state leaders that it's time to make real changes to our state's health care system, even if that means eliminating the boondoggle MNsure all together.
Checking our rising health care costs will take a bipartisan effort, and it's time for our elected leaders to come together on behalf of Minnesotans and implement solutions that don't leave folks unsure year after year about how they're going to afford their "affordable" health care.