Dear Neighbor,
The Legislature provided final approval for health insurance relief and reform on Thursday and the governor enacted the package that evening.
It is good to see bipartisanship prevail on this important issue, especially in regard to reform the House majority was proposing. One of my top assertions on this issue has been that we needed to enact reform to contain future costs or the current health insurance crisis is bound to repeat itself.
Although it is only January, as anyone in the business world knows, if you aren’t planning for the year ahead, you may as well consider yourself a year behind. This is especially important with health care rates since right now the mechanics for 2018 rate setting are taking place and, without reforms the news for 2018, could be even worse than they were in 2017. My hope is the reforms are soon enough, and workable enough, to prevent another premium disaster like was just faced.
The bill passed both bodies with bipartisan support and Gov. Mark Dayton signed within hours.
In addition to the insurance premium relief, House led reforms in the final bill include:
- Allowing for-profit HMOs to operate in Minnesota (like most states) which will increase options for consumers.
- Modifying stop loss coverage to make it easier for more small businesses to offer affordable insurance to their employees.
- Providing greater transparency for proposed insurance premium changes by requiring earlier disclosure of proposed rates.
- Allowing Agricultural Cooperatives to offer group health insurance to their members so farmers and their families can get better access to care and more affordable coverage.
- Ensuring Minnesota employees can benefit from the recently passed federal 21st Century Cures Act which allows employers to make pre-tax contributions toward employee health insurance costs.
- Network adequacy reform that will assist in ensuring more options for residents in rural Minnesota.
- Prohibiting surprise billing to protect consumers from previously undisclosed costs.
Before I close, I ask area citizens to please join me in prayers for Gov. Dayton as he takes on his health-related challenges (in addition to his fainting at the State of the State address, he also recently was diagnosed with prostate cancer). I know it was a difficult week for him and let’s wish him the best. He did unveil his budget proposal this week and I will pass along more on that in an upcoming update.
Sincerely,
Bob