By Rep. Tom Hackbarth
This year’s legislative session is nearing its end. Concerns we had that 2014 would bring even more government growth and added spending are unfolding.
The House passed an unnecessary bullying bill, approved $90 million in taxpayer spending for a new Senate office building and spent even more to bail out Minnesota’s version of Obamacare. One of the last big topics of discussion remaining at this column’s deadline was a bill that spends $1 billion on statewide projects.
So much for this being an "Unsession," where Gov. Mark Dayton said the focus would be on eliminating excessive government, cutting cumbersome red tape and repealing unnecessary laws. I fully supported that intention. It is too bad legislators in St. Paul just could not help themselves and went the other direction.
About the only place we have seen majority members express interest in following through with the "Unsession" was undoing some of the tax increases they themselves passed in 2013. Otherwise, the 2014 session has been more about building government.
Then we have MNsure. This program is more than six months old and the enrollment deadline has passed, yet we still have more questions than answers as to what is wrong with this program.
How bad is it? Even the feds are getting in the act. U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa launched an investigation into Dayton’s and Democrats’ failures in trying to build Obamacare in Minnesota. Issa recently sent a rather blunt letter to the governor. It, in part, reads:
"It is clear that the Minnesota exchange has failed to live up to expectations. Despite receiving over $155 million dollars in federal grants to set up its ObamaCare exchange, the exchange has managed to enroll only approximately 38,000 people. Put differently, for every person enrolled by the exchange, federal taxpayers gave the state approximately $5,000."
It would be good to hear some real answers regarding the real depths of MNsure’s problems. We also have an investigation underway by the state auditor’s office that could shed light on this subject. The only way MNsure can even hope to sustain itself is with a better balance between public and private plans. MNsure also needs younger, healthier people to enroll and pay the freight for others, but this demographic has been slow to do so from the start.
It will be interesting to follow these developments. Only time will tell if there are improvements that can shock MNsure to life, or if it is just a broken, wasteful program that serves as an example of bureaucrats thinking they know better and getting involved in things they should not.
As for the bullying bill, let’s start with this: Nobody likes bullying. It's important to make sure all children feel safe in our schools. But the approach taken with this legislation is misguided. I support anti-bullying policies that are developed and implemented at the local level. We should trust local principals, teachers and parents to keep our kids safe instead of shifting important decisions to bureaucrats at the state level.