January, 2009
January 9, 2009| Posted in Articles, Health Care, In the News, News Media, Paul's Viewpoint
Paul Thissen, Star Tribune, Jan. 9, 2009
Nearly 200,000 Minnesotans have one thing in common right now: They’ve lost their jobs and, in many cases, their health insurance.
These historic unemployment numbers are just one symptom of the current economic crisis facing our state and nation. Families are losing their homes, bankruptcies are on the rise, and a lack of health insurance exacerbates both. When the Legislature undertakes its staggering task this year of balancing the state budget, it must do so with an eye to easing the pain job loss wreaks on our communities and families. It can start with short-term, affordable health insurance.
Most of us can identify with the toll on families when they don’t have insurance. Cost-effective, preventive care is often delayed or skipped altogether; visits for injury or illness may be put off until more costly emergency care or hospitalization is required. A lack of health insurance may even compound the challenge of finding a new job when chronic conditions go untreated.
In addition, there is a broader economic impact as fewer people seek care. More than one in eight Minnesotans work in the health care industry. As people put off routine care and delay treatment for more serious ailments, local clinics and hospitals suffer. We have already seen major health care layoffs in recent months. We cannot afford to let rising unemployment and the subsequent loss of health insurance further weaken one of our state’s largest economic engines.
The one option that is currently available to laid-off workers, Continuation of Health Coverage, otherwise known as COBRA, is too expensive for most families. Qualified individuals are required to pay 102 percent of both the employer’s and employee’s share of the cost of the policy. The cost of COBRA premiums is more than $1,000 per month on average for family coverage, simply unaffordable when unemployment benefits average about $324 a week. As a result of this high cost, only 20 percent of those individuals who qualify for COBRA actually buy it, leaving 80 percent of the newly unemployed uninsured. That is unacceptable.
What can we do? One immediate option is to offer MinnesotaCare — the state’s health-care plan for working Minnesotans — to those who are approved for unemployment benefits. People would remain covered as long as they continue to receive unemployment benefits and pay the low-cost premiums.
This unique program could sunset in two years, after the current economic crisis has passed. Using the MinnesotaCare fund, which currently has a surplus balance of dedicated health-care dollars, to help Minnesotans in this time of economic crisis is the right thing to do, will help Minnesotans get back to work even faster, and offers additional stimulus to our economy.
Admittedly, this is a short-term solution. We must continue to move forward on more fundamental, broad-ranging reform of our health-care system. But right now there is a need for immediate relief. The Legislature can and should deliver it.
Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis, is a member of the Minnesota House and is a candidate for governor.
| Posted in Articles, Front Page Slideshow, Health Care, In the News
MINNESOTA NURSING HOMES SEEK MORE AID
Warren Wolfe, Star Tribune, January 8, 2009
As state officials begin pulling out red pens to cope with a nearly $5 billion budget shortfall, groups representing nursing homes and the uninsured said Wednesday they will ask the Legislature for millions in additional health spending.
“We have to get past the narrative that this session is only about balancing the budget,” said Rep. Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis, who will sponsor legislation backed by both groups. “We can do more.”
Legislative action on spending bills is expected to start slowly while the state waits for a new economic forecast next month and for possible help from a new economic stimulus package under discussion in Washington, D.C.
But both proposals face tough sledding, and health and human services spending may be prime targets for budget cuts. Gov. Tim Pawlenty will offer his budget proposal Jan. 27.
One proposal offered Wednesday would cover about 77,000 uninsured children by 2010. A more modest bill in 2007, which passed the House but not the Senate, would have covered 20,000 children at a cost of $250 million a year.
The proposal, called the Minnesota Health Security Act, is backed by a coalition that includes the Children’s Defense Fund Minnesota and a range of unions and other groups with 350,000 members. It would be expanded to adults by 2012 and ensure that no one would pay more than 5 percent of family income for health insurance.
The state’s 393 nursing homes, which say they now lose more than $23 a day per resident under reimbursements set by the state, will ask for $80 million for the next two years to prop up their rates and give all long-term-care employees a 2.9-percent cost of living raise.
“Many homes have cut staffing and services, and I don’t thing there’s much more to cut,” said Patti Cullen, CEO of Care Providers of Minnesota. “More homes will close, we’re starting to see waiting lists to get in, and it’s our job to warn legislators that quality and access to care are at risk.”
New ways to pay for care
“We need to rethink how we finance long-term care and make sure that everyone has access to affordable health care,” said Thissen, who chairs the Health and Human Services Committee in the House. He also will sponsor a bill offering MinnesotaCare, a subsidized health plan for lower-income people, to anyone receiving unemployment compensation.
Payments based on need
Advocates say both proposals would save money by reducing unnecessary hospitalizations and improving health.
One proposal by the state’s two nursing home trade groups would allow people to buy state-supervised long-term care insurance charging a set premium and making payments to individuals — for them to spend however they see fit — based on need.
The payments likely would not cover all of a person’s long-term-care costs, but they would stretch clients’ personal savings and delay the point at which they seek help from the state-federal Medicaid program, advocates say. Medicaid pays about $1.2 billion a year for two-thirds of Minnesota nursing home residents.
January 8, 2009| Posted in Current Issue - Frontpage, Health Care, In the News, Paul's Viewpoint, Speeches
Thank you to Senator Lourey for his support of this legislation. And also thank you to the organizations that have formed the Make Health Happen coalition – representing over 350,000 Minnesotans.
For the past several years, many of us in this room have worked tirelessly to make sure that every Minnesota child can see a doctor or a nurse when he or she needs to. In 2007, the Cover All Kids legislation passed overwhelmingly in the Minnesota House and formed a centerpiece for some of the most critical health care achievements of the Session. We made important progress, covering nearly 40,000 more children and over 100,000 more adults.
Unfortunately, the work to cover all kids in Minnesota remains unfinished.
Today, there are 80,000 children in Minnesota who are living without health insurance and are just one health care crisis away from catastrophe. That fact remains unacceptable in Minnesota, budget crisis or not. I am standing here today because, even as legislators start putting on their green eye-shades and taking out their scalpels, we cannot lose sight of our larger moral and political obligation to do right by the next generation.
I will never forget the mother I met in Rochester who worked her way out of poverty, got her diploma and got a job that offered health benefits only to discover that single coverage was affordable but family coverage for her seven year old son was exorbitantly expensive. I immediately thought of my own three children and having to make an economically unavoidable decision to leave my children uninsured. Minnesota is better than leaving any family in that position.
Most certainly, the current economic crisis does nothing to diminish the need for quality, affordable health care for all the children in this state. In fact, I would argue that the state’s current economic crisis is exactly the time when we need to act boldly.
Affordable, meaningful health care for all, starting with children, is a necessary part of an economic recovery, especially if we want that recovery to be sustainable and stable.
The Minnesota Health Security Act would offer immediate help to Minnesota families facing the threat of a foreclosure due to unpaid medical bills or who recently lost a job and are struggling to afford the costs of coverage.
Businesses, especially small businesses, in Minnesota would see immediate relief from rising health insurance costs and might be able to avoid layoffs or even raise wages. This is exactly the kind of economic stimulus that our state needs at a time when we are facing historic and unprecedented unemployment.
Moreover, this is true reform. The Minnesota Health Security Act will streamline all existing health care programs for children, taking multiple programs and turning them into one seamless system, a move that would considerably reduce the administrative duplication and redundancy at DHS. Long term savings for the state would also result from increased use of preventive care and reduced hospital admissions.
We have made important progress on health care reform in the past two years and it is work that needs to continue. But Minnesota needs more than technical changes in how our health care system works. Minnesotans want a vision, a pathway to a health care system that works for them and that is there for them. The Minnesota Health Security Act provides that vision and pathway.
I look forward to working with all of the people here today and people across this state on this critical next step.
| Posted in Education Ideas, Submitted Ideas
Introduction/Background
The current system of discounted tuition in public colleges is not effective in allowing highly talented 3.0 or higher High School graduates access a college education without facing astronomical tuition costs and fees.
My Idea
The basic requirements are:
* The student is a resident of the state of Minnesota
* The student graduated high school with a 3.0 GPA (’B average’)
* The student maintains a 3.0 GPA throughout college
The scholarship pays full tuition, a $150 per semester book allowance, and most mandatory fees for the recipient to attend any public university in Minnesota up until the semester in which the student takes his or her 150th academic hour. an equivalent amount should be applied towards tuition for private universities in Minnesota
* The program should be entirely merit-based, meaning that a student’s ability to pay for his/her own education is not a factor in determining if he/she receives it .
* The program be based totally on revenue gained from the Minnesota State Lottery.
Read Full Entry...
| Posted in Articles, Current Issue - Frontpage, Front Page Slideshow, In the News, News Media
BROAD COALITION DEMANDS AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE FOR “ALL” MINNESOTANS
John Croman , KARE 11 News, January 8, 2009
The push is on again at the State Capitol to make the word “uninsured” a thing of the past in Minnesota, at least when it comes to health care.
A broad coalition dubbed “Make Health Care Happen” launched a campaign to build support for a bill known as The Minnesota Health Security Act. The goal is to cover all 77,000 children the group estimates are currently uninsured in the state by July of 2010, and expand that to 300,000 adults who lack coverage in 2012.
“Affordable, comprehensive health care for all Minnesotans,” DFL Senator Tony Lourey of Kerrick told reporters Thursday, “Comprehensive meaning it would include mental health, vision and dental services that are all too often left out of our current system.”
The Reverend Sarah Campbell of the Mayflower Congregational Church in Minneapolis was among those who revved up the packed meeting room at the Capitol.
“This is about our bodies; who is insured and who is not,” Campbell said, “But this is also about our souls, the soul of our community.”
She added, “Those saints who started most of the hospitals and clinics in Minnesota did not have profits on the mind.” Supporters of universal care contend they’re gaining momentum, and more people are starting view the traditional model of having their insurance tied to their jobs as outdated.
Jim Koppel, who heads the Children’s Defense Fund in Minnesota, pointed out that with rising unemployment many people are losing coverage altogether, while others still in the work force are paying more for plans that deliver less.
“We all have friends, neighbors who either have lost their health care coverage or are about to,” Koppel remarked, “Employers are going to drop health care coverage, or are going to be forced to drop family coverage and maybe keep employee coverage.”
Koppel said it’s a way of doing business that puts many employers in the United States at a competitive disadvantage on the global market.
“Employers are stuck in this position today of international competition,” Koppel explained, “Dealing internationally with countries that cover all their citizens and don’t put it on the backs of employers.”
In addition to the Children’s Defense Fund, the coalition backing the bill includes labor groups such as Education Minnesota, the Minnesota Nurses Association and the Minnesota AFL-CIO. It also includes health advocacy organizations such as Take Action Minnesota.
The first thing reporters always ask of any sweeping plan announced at the Capitol is how much it will cost the taxpayers. They’ve seen previous plans shot down even when the state wasn’t facing a huge budget deficit.
That question remains unanswered at this early stage of the game, although proponents point out many Minnesotans are already spending 10 to 15 percent of their income on health. And, the bill envisions streamlining existing publicly subsidized programs to avoid duplication.
Senator’s Lourey’s co-sponsor in the House, Representative Paul Thissen urged Minnesotans to keep their eyes on the horizon.
“There’s a general narrative going on here by the Governor, by legislative leadership and also by the media that this session is just about balancing a budget and getting done on time and on budget,” the Minneapolis Democrat said, “And I think it would be a tragedy it we think that’s all our legislative role is about.”
“What this bill is about is trying to break out of that narrative and move forward on a larger vision for our state.”
Paul Thissen, Star Tribune, Jan. 9, 2009
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