Dear Neighbor,
The Manhattan Institute is now reporting insurance premiums increased an average of 47 percent in Minnesota this year when compared with prices from before Minnesota’s version of Obamacare – MNsure – was launched. This increase applies to people who do not receive insurance through their employer or via Medicaid or Medicare.
This link allows you to check county by county. It shows a 40-year-old in the counties of District 9A – Cass, Todd and Wadena – all are paying 74 percent more. But, by comparison, those are the lucky folks. Reports indicate females in Goodhue County are paying an average of 200 percent more this year – the largest increase for women in the country.
This is outrageous! Wasn’t the purpose of Obamacare and, therefore, MNsure, to help people achieve affordable health care? Wasn’t it called the Affordable Care Act?
There are serious flaws with both the state and federal programs. As a Minnesota House member, I would say we need to fix MNsure, but it is a flat-out failure.
Don’t buy the line proponents are tossing out that MNsure is responsible for cutting the state uninsured rate by 41 percent. A senior health care executive said that number largely was achieved by expanding eligibility for Medicaid, something we could have done without spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on a program nobody but Gov. Mark Dayton and metro liberals still seem to support.
How bad is it when almost a full year after MNsure’s launch, an investigation recently announced the program’s website still cannot reliably perform two-thirds of its necessary functions?
I will keep you posted as things develop on these fronts. We need to continue to look for ways that we can make health care better and more affordable for all Minnesotans. (For instance, by restoring MnCare, which was working successfully prior to Obamacare/MNsure).
On a separate note, we are now learning the $2 billion tax increase the Democrats sold Minnesotans as a key tool to providing property tax relief was nothing more than grand-standing rhetoric. Statistics from nonpartisan House research now shows that statewide property tax levies are projected to rise by $238 million, a 92 percent gain over last year’s increase of $123 million.
That means our overall property tax increases are projected to rise by 3.3 percent in Greater Minnesota and 2.4 percent in the Metro Area. Based on a statewide average, residential homesteads can expect a 3.8 percent increase and agricultural property is expected to jump 4.7 percent.
Again, metro Democrats are sticking it to people like us in Greater Minnesota who just want to be left alone to live our lives. If they really wanted to “help” us they would quit confiscating our money and acting like government knows how to better spend it.
Sincerely,
Mark