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RELEASE: Minn. House passes health insurance bill; Schultz says changes too sweeping, delays relief

Thursday, January 19, 2017

St. Paul, Minn. – Tonight on a vote of 73-54, largely along partisan lines, the Minnesota House passed a bill (SF 1) creating a relief subsidy program aimed to address increasing health insurance premiums in the individual market. Under the plan, policyholders wouldn’t see relief until 2018, and it also contains many complex health insurance policy changes.

“Minnesotans are being hit hard by massive premium increases, and the bill passed tonight doesn’t get relief to these folks nearly fast enough,” Rep. Jennifer Schultz (DFL – Duluth) said. “It’s extremely disappointing that with such a simple plan on the table to get premium relief to Minnesotans now – as proposed by Governor Dayton – we are going in this direction with reckless, unvetted policy changes.”

The provisions contained in SF 1 includes income limits, controversial stop loss attachments, and allows HMOs to be operated by for-profit entities. In addition to not giving relief to Minnesotans until 2018, the plan would be administered by a new bureaucratic entity at a hefty price tag: $20 million.

Gov. Mark Dayton’s plan is more streamlined, and would get a 25 percent rebate to the approximately 125,000 affected Minnesotans by March of this year. An amendment to substitute this proposal into the bill was shot-down by the GOP majority. While Rep. Schultz is open to reforms, she thinks substantial policy changes need to be given more thorough consideration by the legislature.

“The best thing we can do in the short term to stabilize the market is to get these rebates to Minnesotans right away, and this is where our focus should be,” she said. “In fact, some provisions included in this bill could destabilize the market even more. We simply haven’t had enough time or enough opportunity for input from those responsible for implementing such sweeping reforms. It’s extremely problematic that we’re taking this approach.”

Serving on the House Health and Human Services Finance Committee, as well as the Minnesota Health Care Finance Task Force and the MNsure Legislative Oversight Committee, Rep. Schultz plans to be deeply involved in ongoing discussions concerning health insurance and health care delivery

The bill now goes to a Conference Committee where differences with the Senate version of the bill will be considered.