SAINT PAUL, Minn.—Today, the Minnesota House passed HF5, the Republican Majority’s proposal to create a program to subsidize insurance companies. The bill sets up an 11 member board to administer the program – with a majority of board members representing insurance companies – to backfill the cost of large healthcare claims. Funding for the program would come from the Health Care Access Fund, which is currently the funding source for MinnesotaCare, a program providing affordable health insurance to low-income working Minnesotans.
State Rep. Tina Liebling (DFL – Rochester) released the following statement:
“House Republicans propose to pay insurance companies hundreds of millions of dollars per year without any guarantee of public benefit. The companies will be in charge of doling out subsidies to themselves from a fund filled with public dollars and will have wide discretion about how much the subsidy will be. The funds that will be directed into the insurance company subsidies are currently used to help provide MinnesotaCare insurance for working but low-income Minnesotans. The Republican proposal is supposed to reduce premiums for people who buy individual insurance, but does not require the companies to give any cost reduction to the consumer, and it does nothing at all to improve access to health care for these customers.
“To give to the wealthy, HF 5 also takes from the working poor by diverting money now used to pay for MinnesotaCare. Republicans have tried to dismantle MinnesotaCare in the past, and have not revealed any plan to replace it after the funding is diverted and the provider tax goes away. MinnesotaCare serves about 82,000 Minnesotans, many of whom live in rural Minnesota. If Republicans succeed in dismantling MinnesotaCare it is likely that these Minnesotans will go without any coverage.”
Rep. Liebling is the DFL Lead on the House Committee on Health and Human Services Reform. Rep. Liebling can be contacted by email at rep.tina.liebling@house.mn or phone at 651-296-7173.