By Rep. Paul Anderson
The House finished work on three major supplemental finance bills last week, setting the stage for conference committee work with the Senate. While the three House bills each combined several related areas into one bill, the Senate put their entire supplemental budget into one piece of legislation. Besides the different approach to crafting bills in each chamber, major differences remain as to how the surplus is used. The House kept its spending targets at zero in hopes of utilizing the $900 million in additional state funds for tax relief and road construction. The Senate, however, spends most of the surplus, but allocates only a small portion of it to roads and highways.
The finance and policy bill in the area of health and human services was debated for nearly 13 hours in the House last Thursday. Among its features is the elimination of the state health insurance exchange, MnSure, and our movement to the federal exchange. There was concern expressed about another item in the bill that calls for asset tests for residents as a qualification for state sponsored health insurance coverage such as Medical Assistance (MA). What it means is that if one’s assets amount to a certain level, they would be ineligible for the program. Farmers and other small business owners are concerned that if they owned land or other assets and reached the threshold, they would not be eligible.
Because of low commodity prices, something a bit unusual has been happening. Some farmers had little or no income last year and qualified for state-supported health insurance, despite the fact they had relatively high amounts of assets such as land, livestock, or machinery. This new asset test, if added to statute, would keep some out of this program. I questioned staff about how high this asset limit would be set, and was assured there would be exceptions granted for such things as land or equipment.
Another area of concern addressed in the bill relates to having a lien attached to one’s estate when signing up for state-supported health insurance. Many were unaware of that feature when they enrolled in the program. This new legislation would grant a release from those liens to those who signed up after Jan. 1, 2014. That’s good news for those who attempted to buy out of the liens when they became aware of them, but because of state law, were unable to. This would give a window of time for those wishing to eliminate the liens placed on their estates, but the provision itself would remain in effect in the future but would be better explained to those signing up.
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Less than three weeks remain until adjournment with much work left to be done. The other two major bills relating to taxes and transportation are still in conference committee. It would appear that highway funding is the big remaining piece left to be negotiated in order to reach a settlement on all spending. House Republicans believe we can substantially increase road funding without raising the gas tax, while the Senate and Gov. Dayton are still calling for a substantial increase in our current 28.5 cents per gallon tax on motor fuel.
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After a cool and wet week, farmers are getting back in the fields. Most corn planting should be wrapping up in coming days, with attention turning to soybeans. It’s still relatively early, and conditions are good for field work.
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