Dear Neighbor,
On Wednesday, MNsure – the Minnesota arm of Obamacare – held a board meeting to review the status of its enrollment process. We discovered that after one month into MNsure’s failed launch, zero Minnesotans have completed enrollment in a health plan. Because MNsure officials are unable to transfer application information into health plans – the critical last step of the enrollment process – a person cannot be completely enrolled in a health plan. After spending $150 million taxpayer dollars on this government-organized bureaucracy, Minnesotans should truly expect better of their government.
Additionally, you can expect to pay a brand new tax on your health insurance plans. The unelected board of directors for MNsure voted to impose a 1.5% tax on your health insurance. Revenue from this tax will be held in a special account to be used by MNsure to cover operation costs, with few limitations, in later years. Minnesota taxpayers can’t afford to pay even more for the implementation of Obamacare by Governor Dayton and Democrats. Even worse, it’s not only MNsure enrollees who are seeing their costs go up. It has been reported that as many as 1 in 20 Minnesotans (280,000) will be forced to give up policies they like, with doctors of their choosing, for policies that will be more expensive and involve services they do not want.
Meanwhile, the legislative auditor issued his review of the MNsure privacy breach that occurred back in September when an employee released the social security numbers of over 1500 Minnesotans. The legislative auditor concluded that this was not an isolated incident, but a top-to-bottom problem for MNsure as it relates to properly training employees and instituting safeguards of the personal information of Minnesotans. It’s time for this trend of data breaches to end.
CHILDCARE UNIONIZATION
We received word recently that Governor Dayton and the Bureau of Mediation Services are on the hook to pay $60,000 in attorneys’ fees to childcare providers after the governor attempted to unilaterally impose a childcare unionization election in 2011. Because Governor Dayton attempted to do this through executive order, childcare providers filed a lawsuit to stop him and won. The court ruled that the governor had overstepped his constitutional bounds. Now, Minnesota taxpayers are on the hook to clean up the governor’s mistake and pay legal fees to the attorneys of the childcare providers. It’s a shame the governor single-handedly wasted taxpayer dollars in this way.
MSOP
The Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP) has been in the news recently. A very graphic story by the Star Tribune details one particular offender set to be released. Please be warned that before you read the story, many of the details are quite gruesome.
I agree with the Attorney General, a Democrat, in opposing this individual’s release to a halfway house. Unfortunately, Governor Dayton, supports the recommendation for a supervised release.
If you share my concern on this issue, you can contact Governor Dayton’s office at 651-201-3400 or e-mail him by clicking here.
As always, I am interested in your feedback. Please feel free to contact me by e-mail at Rep.Kathy.Lohmer@House.MN or contact my office at 651-296-4244. You can also send mail to my office address: 239 State Office Building, 100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., St. Paul, MN 55155.
Sincerely,
Kathy