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Legislative News and Views - Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen (R)

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News from Representative Gruenhagen 03-12-2013

Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Dear Friends,
 
Last Monday the House debated and passed one of the largest overhauls of Minnesota's healthcare system in recent history. The bill creates a $300 million dollar "super-agency" that will be responsible for selling insurance to approximately 1.2 million Minnesotans.
 
Simply put, it's ObamaCare coming to Minnesota. HF05, the Health Insurance Exchange bill is yet another expansion of government and does nothing to lower costs or improve the doctor-patient relationship. In fact, it does the opposite. An unelected board of seven bureaucrats has the ability to arbitrarily exclude health plans from being sold on the Exchange, limiting the ability for you to make the best healthcare decisions for you and your family. If you like your current doctor, and your employer opts to purchase insurance through the exchange, you may be at risk of having to change doctors if your clinic isn't covered by the plans sold on the exchange.
 
Republicans made repeated attempts to increase legislative oversight, bolster data privacy protections, and bring down the costs associated with this bill, but nearly all of the amendments offered were rejected by DFLers on the floor who, like Nancy Pelosi, want us to just pass the bill so we can find out what's in it. It didn't work for ObamaCare, and it won't work for the Health Insurance Exchange.
 
I strongly oppose this bill, because it does nothing to solve the real problems facing the healthcare industry. I gave a speech on the House floor explaining some of my biggest objections to the bill that you can view by clicking here.
 
The bill was passed by the Senate last week, and now heads to conference committee. I urge you to contact DFL leaders and the Governor and urge them to rethink this boondoggle of a bill.
 
Have a great rest of your week,
 
Glenn