Dear Neighbors, The biggest news out of the State Capitol has been around yesterday’s announcement of a budget deal reached by Governor Walz and legislative leaders. This agreement largely sets the framework for which we’ll craft our specific budget areas - guidelines to let legislators know how much can be invested or reduced in funding. But the deal also includes specific agreements on policy issues that have seen Republican obstructionism slow or stop the legislative process. Going into this legislative session with a tied House, my DFL colleagues and I knew that much of our work would be focused on protecting the historic progress we made the last few years, and I’m glad to say this deal protects many of those wins - Universal School Meals, reproductive freedom, gun violence prevention measures, clean energy goals, Unemployment Insurance for hourly school workers, Earned Sick & Safe Time, and Paid Family & Medical Leave, just to name a few. However, Republicans dug in and held the state budget hostage unless their demand to strip healthcare access for our undocumented neighbors was met. They would risk a government shutdown, along with all the services Minnesotans rely on, just to make life more difficult and deadly for some of our neighbors. The compromise reached by legislative leaders would strip MinnesotaCare, a health care program for Minnesotans with low incomes, from undocumented adults, leaving children still eligible. The nature of compromise is that no one gets everything they want, but I will not compromise on my values and the values you sent me to the Minnesota House to represent - at the very core of which is protecting our neighbors. I will not vote for a bill that strips healthcare access away from anyone. This is a proposal that is not just morally wrong, but fiscally irresponsible. Just because someone doesn’t have health insurance doesn’t mean they don’t get sick. More often than not they just put off seeking medical treatment until they end up in a costly emergency room, where medical emergencies are treated regardless of coverage. I want to lift up the words of Senator Alice Mann, a physician, and member of the legislature’s People of Color and Indigenous Caucus, who spoke against this proposal yesterday. |