Statewide Commentary: M.A. Option Is Common Sense

The Republican TV ads for November must already be filmed and ready to go. Republicans running for state offices have clearly decided to jump on the bandwagon of opposition to the national health care bill.

And so Republicans in the Legislature — led by gubernatorial candidate, Tom Emmer — walked away from $1.4 billion in health care investments that would have immediately shored up struggling hospitals and clinics and held down your health care premiums. This is cynical politics at its worst and Minnesotans should be outraged.

Here?s the background: Minnesota currently pays the cost of health care for about 82,000 of the poorest, most vulnerable Minnesotans without children using only state tax dollars. But this year, we are being given the opportunity to immediately move those individuals to Medicaid, which means that the federal government would pick up half of the cost of their health care. Taking advantage of the offer would be incredibly beneficial for Minnesota.

Indeed, the deal is so good for Minnesota that Gov. Tim Pawlenty (no fan of federal health care reform) initially offered to include the Medicaid option as

part of the final state budget agreement — until Republican legislators raised such a political ruckus that the governor retreated.

So what does the Republican?s decision to kill the opportunity mean?

First, thousands of health care jobs in Minnesota will be lost at a time when we can ill-afford more unemployment. Local hospitals and clinics will miss out

on dramatically improved reimbursement rates and will suffer millions of dollars in losses instead. And every one of us with private health insurance will experience higher premium increases in the future to make up for those losses.

Moreover, by refusing the new Medicaid option, a cash-strapped state of Minnesota will miss the chance to draw down $1.4 billion in federal funds, money that will now go to other states to help balance their state budgets. Passing up the federal help makes little sense for Minnesota which today only gets back about 76 cents for every federal tax dollar paid to Washington, D.C.

Moreover, we could draw down the $1.4 billion with an investment of $190 million state dollars. It boggles my mind that Republicans, who seemingly pride themselves on their business acumen, would have passed on the opportunity to get back $7.45 for every dollar invested.

But that?s not the worst of it. The same Republicans in the Minnesota House who vehemently oppose the Medicaid option today actually offered and supported an essentially identical proposal to move those 82,000 Minnesotans into Medicaid just one year ago!

So why did the Republican legislators flip-flop and reject the chance to preserve good jobs, hold your health care premiums down and get back some hard-earned federal tax dollars to Minnesota?

The answer is obvious: Electoral politics. The Republicans, from Tom Emmer on down, want to scare the people of Minnesota with the specter of “Obamacare” to gain votes in November.

Don?t buy into the fear-mongering. The Medicaid option is not government take-over of health care. It is simply a fuller utilization of a health care program that began in 1965 and is largely administered by private health insurance companies.

In other words, when a Republican legislator or candidate says he opposes “government take-over of health care”, what he?s really saying is that he wants to get rid of a program that already provides coverage for more than 500,000 Minnesotans each month; more than half of them are children and families, the remaining are seniors and people who have disabilities.

So next time you see Tom Emmer or a Republican legislative candidate, ask him why he doesn?t want Minnesota to get more of your hard-earned federal tax dollars back. Ask him why Republican legislators were overwhelmingly for the Medicaid option before they were against it. And ask him why he is unwilling to stand up for Minnesota hospitals and clinics and fight to preserve Minnesota jobs. And when you go to the polls in November, remember the answers.

2010 DFL State Convention Speech

Thissen takes action to save jobs, protect mentally ill

Proposals to change Minnesota-run mental health care draw fire

A reorganization of state-run mental health facilities proposed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s administration is drawing increasing fire around the Capitol, as health care leaders in the House said Thursday that they would seek final say on any such move.

The changes, which include shuttering facilities, affect sites in Anoka, Cambridge, Eveleth and elsewhere and aim to saving $17 million while providing better services for those suffering severe mental illnesses. Announced in March, the plan was to be rolled out over the next 14 months.

But it drew fire from lobbyists concerned about what the plan means for patients, including those who may be forced to seek services away from their families, and from unions, which object to a plan to lay off 200 workers.

“The entire mental health community is not supportive, and that’s a problem,” said Sue Abderholden, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness-Minnesota.

Rep. Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis, held a news conference Thursday, flanked by a handful of other lawmakers, and accused the Minnesota Department of Human Services of expanding a mandate to examine services at facilities only in Anoka and Cambridge.

“They took that charge and spread it across all state-operated services,” said Thissen, chairman of the House Health Care and Human Services Policy and Oversight committee, referring to a group of state-run programs and facilities focused mainly on the mentally ill.

Thissen said he would

Rep. Tom Rukavina, DFL-Virginia, said he was worried about changes to a behavioral health center in Eveleth, on the Iron Range.

“This is frightening, and it’s got to be stopped,” Rukavina said.

But Human Services Commissioner Cal Ludeman said the administration was within its rights to make the changes, which would help the department close its share of a projected $1 billion statewide budget deficit. Capitol lawmakers and Pawlenty already have agreed on more than $300 million in cuts.

Ludeman said the department provided too many beds in some cases and offered unnecessary levels of care in others. The changes will include revising the services at several facilities, and six — including a handful of state-run dental clinics — would close.

In their place, new psychiatric care centers would provide 24-hour stays for patients, and facilities would help them recover and go home. A new 24-hour system also would help conduct faster assessments and placements of mentally ill people.

“We need to be able to provide better care, but at lower cost,” Ludeman said.

Several unions oppose the move, including AFSCME Council 5, which said last month that the cuts and resulting job loss would harm patients and put staff in danger.

The union pointed to staffing cuts at the St. Peter Regional Treatment Center, saying assaults on staff members have increased dramatically.

“The human cost of understaffing is unconscionable,” council director Eliot Seide said.

Read the rest of the article here.

Thissen Stands Up for GAMC

Dems move to override Pawlenty’s GAMC veto

MPR: DFLers seek health care options in wake of governor’s cuts

By Tim Nelson, Minnesota Public Radio, July 3, 2009

Minneapolis — Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s plan to balance Minnesota’s budget is getting some of its stiffest resistance from health care providers.

The unallotment of millions of dollars in health care spending for the poor has them worried about tens of thousands of Minnesotans that may have no more medical coverage next spring.

Democratic lawmakers have been traveling the state this week, trying to come up with another plan for those who are cut off.

Minnesota’s financial crisis may hit hardest in downtown Minneapolis, at the sprawling Hennepin County Medical Center. It’s the flagship of a public health system that gets gets more more than 300,000 clinic visits alone every year.

Cuts to General Assistance Medical Care, or GMAC, could cost HCMC $43 million over the next two years. The money pays for care for people who make eight thousand dollars a year or less.

Former Minneapolis mayor and hospital board member Sharon Sayles Belton laid out for lawmakers what that may mean.

“We will have to reduce or eliminate the services that are what we call the worst financial providers,” she said. “This could include things like our primary care clinic, our specialty services for problems like diabetes, our dental services and some of the components of our mental health service continuum.”

It’s a story that lawmakers have been hearing all over the state.

But they’re offering little hope to health care providers that the cuts will be averted.

State Sen. Linda Berglin, DFL-Minneapolis, pointed out that the cuts are set to take effect next March, just three weeks after the Legislature reconvenes for its 2010 session. She told dozens of people at the House Health and Humans Services Policy and Oversight Committee that there simply may not be enough time.

“I have no idea. If I had a great master plan, in my hip pocket, I’d whip it out and say, oh, look, this isn’t so hard,” she said.

She urged her fellow lawmakers and the health and state at HCMC to come up with a list of where else in the state they could find $400 million to pay for health care for the poor.

But officials are eyeing ideas, too, and hinted at some of them at today’s hearing.

Hennepin County Board Chairman Mike Opat said that the county’s hospital won’t turn the needy away, but property tax payers may have to pick up more of the burden for their care.

Rep. Julie Bunn, DFL-Lake Elmo, suggested that as many as one-third of Minnesotans in their 20s might be eligible for cheap insurance for catastrophic care they could buy in the private market for less than $1,000 a year.

Committee chair Rep. Paul Thissen, D-Minneapolis, said there may be other programs, like housing or social services, that could avert some of the need for health care among the poor.

He also offered some other proposals, like paring back the overall benefit levels offered to the poor and getting more people signed up for Supplemental Security Income, a federal program for the disabled and elderly.

“And you know the governor proposed putting this uncompensated care, reducing funding significantly but putting an uncompensated care pool in place so that the money would not go toward insurance, and getting insurance so the individuals and just having a pool of money that would support places like HCMC or community clinics,” Thissen said.

“We’ve kind of gotten mixed reviews to that kind of thought, because there is a benefit to getting people insured once they leave the hospital doors.”

State and health officials have eight months to come up with a plan B. The existing money officially runs out Feb. 28.