Conferees plan more ‘heavy lifting’

Conferees began working on the details of the House and Senate omnibus health and human services finance bill (HF927/ SF760*) and plan to tackle some of the substantive differences next week, said Sen. David Hann (R-Eden Prairie).

“We will be doing more heavy lifting next week,” Hann said during a May 3 hearing where conferees adopted several technical language differences between the House and Senate bills. Hann chairs the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.

Major issues conferees expect to discuss include the Consumer Health Opportunities and Innovative Care Excellence (CHOICE) flexibility and funding Medicaid reform initiative, which House Health and Human Services Finance Committee Chairman Jim Abeler (R-Anoka) introduced as a more developed definition of the $300 million federal global Medicaid waiver included in the House bill. Abeler and House Health and Human Services Reform Committee Chairman Steve Gottwalt (R-St. Cloud) said they are working toward key reform concepts and objectives, including pay-for-value and care coordination to reduce costs and improve outcomes for public program recipients.

“Right now the door to Minnesota-made reform is closed,” Abeler said. “CHOICE is the key that opens the door for us to move forward with nation-leading reforms to reduce costs and improve outcomes for the people we serve.”

Gottwalt said reforms offered in the bill, including the CHOICE initiative, “transform the current system into a person-centered model that drives value, harnesses innovation and improves quality of care and quality of life for health care consumers.”

Late last month Human Services Commissioner Lucinda Jesson wrote a letter to the committee detailing 41 concerns she has about the bills that outline $1.6 billion in cuts to projected General Fund spending in the next biennium. Gov. Mark Dayton’s health and human services budget proposal includes an $851 million reduction in projected General Fund health and human services spending.

Gottwalt said the committee wants to hear more from the Dayton administration. “We simply need more money to continue to do the things we are doing,” he said.

 Abeler said the job of committee members has been to “prioritize spending and focus on people instead of programs.

“We take this responsibility to heart, and hope the Dayton administration will join our work.”