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Legislative News and Views - Rep. Erin Maye Quade (DFL)

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Legislative Update - March 17th, 2017

Friday, March 17, 2017

Hello neighbors!

 

Thank you to everyone who attended the Town Hall last weekend; we had great turnout and a great discussion. Rep. Wills, Sen. Clausen and I are collaborating to provide a document with answers to questions we didn’t have time to get to during out Town Hall-it should be ready sometime soon. 

It’s been a busy week, so let’s get down to it!

Floor Votes:
We voted on two major bills this week, H.F. 5 and H.F. 1478

House File 5 (H.F. 5)
Most Minnesotans receive their health care through their employer, Medicare or Medicaid; the remainder are meant to purchase their insurance on their own—and these folks make up the “individual market”. You’ll remember this past year, Minnesotans in the individual market saw their premiums rise significantly—and many people’s subsidies from the federal government also increased along with their premiums (thus offset the cost). About 5% of Minnesotans saw their premiums increase but made too much money to qualify for those federal subsidies. Though the State Legislature passed H.F. 1 in January and gave $300 million to insurance companies to reduce the cost of insurance premiums to that 5%, it was a temporary fix and the Minnesota Legislature has been looking for long-term solutions to stabilize our health insurance costs.  

H.F. 5, authored by Rep. Davids, is a bill that creates a state-operated reinsurance program. Reinsurance is, essentially, just insurance of insurance companies (for example: a home insurance company that insures people who live in areas likely to devastated by a hurricane, flood or tornado will have reinsurance to cover the large payouts they might have to make should a devastating event happen—meaning the insurance costs for other homeowners won’t go up just because the insurance company had to make a massive payout to those devastated people). 

Under the bill, Minnesota would reimburse insurance companies for some of their high-cost claims. Ideally, this would help to stabilize premium costs for consumers seeking to purchase insurance. Specifically, H.F. 5 gives an estimated $386 million to health insurance companies in the attempt to offset the cost of insuring expensive Minnesotans and also creates an additional government structure within the government to assess and payout the dollars.

Though I believe reinsurance is a tool that could reduce premiums, with the way H.F. 5 is written, the bill is just a bailout for insurance companies. Up until this year, health insurance companies in Minnesota were required by law to be non-profit. H.F. 1, which I mentioned earlier, removed that requirement. I’m deeply concerned that shortly after making health insurance companies for-profit in Minnesota, we would move to give hundreds of millions of dollars more to those insurance companies and their shareholders. The way H.F. 5 is written, it is entirely feasible that insurance companies could both take the $386 million dollars and raise premiums—there are zero accountability measures written into the bill to make sure $386 million in taxpayer dollars results in a decrease in insurance premiums. The author himself stated many times during committee hearings and during floor debate that he’s not sure this bill will help solve any of the problems with our insurance market. 

Between H.F. 1 and H.F. 5, the Minnesota Legislature has authorized 686 million taxpayer dollars to go to insurance companies in Minnesota. I do not believe insurance company bailouts and creating more government are solutions to our health care woes, and as a result, I voted No on H.F. 5.

H.F. 1478:
H.F. 1478, authored by Rep. Loon, requires that teacher bargaining units and the school board must (rather than may) negotiate a plan for teacher layoffs when there are budget cuts. Though I understand the intent behind Rep. Loon’s bill, I was troubled by the number of teachers, school board associations and administrators who testified against this bill in the Education Committee. Yesterday, when this bill came to the House floor, I spoke against the bill because I believe that when Minnesota has a $1.6 Billion surplus and a teacher shortage, the Minnesota Legislature shouldn’t be focusing on updating the framework through which teachers are laid off when school districts need to make budget cuts. I believe we should be investing in our schools, students and educators with our surplus—and a bill that details a process to lay off teachers during budget cuts feels like notice that there’s a plan to not fully fund our schools. 

Capitol Conversations
So many groups had their Day at the Capitol this week! Here’s some pictures from their visits.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dontcha know? (What am I learning?)
Omnibus Bills: many bills about one topic all rolled into one big bill. There will be many omnibus bills this session (Education Omnibus, Tax Omnibus, Environment Omnibus etc.) and each omnibus will contain many good pieces but also some bad pieces. I believe in a balanced approach to government and have voted for many bills this session that address priorities in our community, even if the approach isn’t what’d I’d prefer (example: H.F. 1). The omnibus bills offer the unique challenge of determining what bad thing(s) one is willing to accept in order to get the good things done. Please continue to reach out to me regarding issues that are important to you so I have as much information as possible before making votes.  

Hotdish
I’m attending a wedding this weekend, so no Coffee and Conversations this weekend. When we resume next weekend, Coffee and Conversations will be themed. My next two Coffee and Conversation will be about seniors and on a different day about veterans. I will follow up early next week with details.

Please contact me on the issues you care about. I appreciate your input.

Sincerely, 

Erin Maye Quade
State Representative