Dual track policy bill debated

A House committee approved a health care policy bill that contains two conflicting continuing care proposals.

HF2456 is the Department of Human Services’ continuing care policy bill. However, the Association of Residential Resources in Minnesota, a consortium of 150 providers supporting people with disabilities, had proposed its own bill based on a set of working group recommendations and industry experience.

Rep. Jim Abeler (R-Anoka) merged the ARRM proposals into HF2456, which he sponsors, with hope that a mutually-agreed upon piece of legislation will raise to the surface. The bill was approved as amended by the House Health and Services Reform Committee March 6 and sent to the House Civil Law Committee.

Sen. Sean Nienow (R-Cambridge) sponsors SF2234, a companion which awaits action by the full Senate.

New statewide standards and payment methods would be created under the bill to comply with new federal health care laws. A sample framework for calculating new payment rates was created by the department, but ARRM members said the proposed data used to create the framework doesn’t adequately reflect the work done by a working group and that estimated “shadow rates” would cause drastic cuts in fees for some provider services.

For example, Homeward Bound serves 60 people with severe disabilities through department waivers.

“We have run some initial shadow rates on a website that the department has created. The numbers are catastrophic for Homeward Bound,” said CEO Don Priebe, who estimated a 7.5 percent cut in revenue under the proposal.

“People with the most severe disabilities are going to suffer the most because they’re the ones who are the most dependent on service,” Priebe said.

The other challenge to compromise is that, in light of the state budget constraints, proposals must be revenue neutral. “It has to do no harm,” Abeler said.

Rep. Tina Liebling (DFL-Rochester) said staying budget neutral is difficult.

“We can’t afford to waste a single dollar, but we have real needs for real people that we gotta pay for and I think that has been kind of dumped in your lap Rep. Abeler. I’d be glad to help if I could. This is a tough problem and I hope we can figure out a good way to solve it without really hurting some folks,” Liebling said.