Health care bill would have devastating effects on Minnesotans, Dayton says

July 06--At a Minneapolis news conference Wednesday, Gov. Mark Dayton and U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, both Democrats, railed against the proposed health care bill in the U.S. Senate.

The Republican-written health care measure would unwind parts of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, and replace them with a less generous and, to backers, a less onerous health insurance program.

The bill threatens health insurance for an estimated 22 million Americans, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO, a nonpartisan office, said the planned Senate health care measure would deliver a 35 percent spending cut to Medicaid, a program for people with low incomes, by 2036.

About 1 million Minnesotans are on Medicaid, with a further 100,000 on the state-run MinnesotaCare. That's about 20 percent of the state's population, Dayton said. The national health care bill under consideration would cost Minnesota $2.8 billion a year by 2026 and a total of $31 billion by 2030 -- and that's too big of a cut for the state to back fill, the governor said.

He and Ellison, who represents Minneapolis, urged Minnesotans to speak out against the bill.

"Quality health care is a right, and it should be treated as such," Dayton said.

The U.S. House replacement for the federal Affordable Care Act passed by just two votes in May. The three Republican House members from Minnesota voted in favor of the measure. The five Democrats voted against it.

Republican U.S. Rep. Jason Lewis said the measures being debated in Congress would create a more robust, affordable and nimble health insurance market.

"We undo the price controls, we undo the mandates, so young and healthy people can get back in the insurance pool with lower premiums," said Lewis, in his first term representing Minnesota's south-suburban 2nd District.

Lewis defended slowing the growth of Medicaid, saying that the able-bodied poor adults it expanded to cover under the Affordable Care Act shouldn't be the program's focus.

In the face of opposition from Senate Republicans, the Senate delayed a vote, originally planned for the end of June, on its replacement until after the July 4 recess.

"It's not too late to raise your voice to stop this terrible Senate bill," Ellison said Wednesday. "If we want to preserve ACA and even extend it and make it better, it's time to raise your voice and to understand that we are right."

Minnesota Department of Human Services Commissioner Emily Piper said the bill would affect Minnesotans in particular by removing federal funding from MinnesotaCare and by not giving Minnesota credit for the reforms it has made to Medicaid.

"If Congress and the president are serious about reducing health care costs, they should really look to states like Minnesota that have innovated and reformed the way we deliver health care for the people of Minnesota, and not punish us for the reforms," Piper said.

Piper said Medicaid pays for almost half of substance-abuse treatment in Minnesota. Medicaid enrollee James Robinson, of Minneapolis, said Medicaid helped him work through his addictions.

"If it weren't for the funding of some of these programs ... there would have been no support system that saw the good in me and said, 'You deserve to live,' " Robinson said at the news conference.

David Montgomery contributed to this report.

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