February 19, 2010| Posted in Articles, Front Page Slideshow, In the News, In the News, News Media
Dems move to override Pawlenty’s GAMC veto
by Tom Scheck, Minnesota Public Radio
February 18, 2010
St. Paul, Minn. — Democrats say they will attempt to override Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s
veto of a bill that extends health insurance for more than 30,000 Minnesotans.
The House and Senate voted overwhelmingly to pass the legislation Thursday, but Pawlenty, who’s in Washington D.C, quickly vetoed the bill, setting up a showdown in the Minnesota House as Democrats try to convince a handful Republicans to reject Pawlenty’s veto.
DFL VOWS TO PASS BILL
Shortly after Gov. Pawlenty announced through a spokesman that he would veto the bill, three Democrats in the Minnesota House lined up outside reporters’ doors to say they won’t stand for it. Rep. Paul Thissen. DFL-Minneapolis, said Democrats, hospital officials and advocates for the poor will work to convince three Republicans to vote to override.
“They’re going to be hearing from their hospitals and their communities and I think for that reason we are going to pick up the votes to override this veto and we should,” Thissen said.
On Thursday, the House and Senate overwhelmingly passed a $284 million bill that would extend the General Assistance Medical Care program for another 16 months. Lawmakers were moving quickly because benefits for the 30,000 people on the program who live below the poverty line will run out on April 1st.
Pawlenty vetoed funding for the program last year, and he has proposed rolling those on GAMC into a different program known as MinnesotaCare. But Rep. Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, said MinnesotaCare is too expensive for people currently enrolled in General Assistance Medical Care.
She said the plan passed by lawmakers would cost less than Pawlenty’s, and that it’s unfair to balance Minnesota’s budget on the backs of the state’s poorest and sickest residents.
“While we have a difficult budget to solve, I don’t think this is the population that should pay the price,” she said. “There are other Minnesotans that have the means to tighten their belts. But this population living under bridges, who have served our country, they’re in hard times and we’re taking away one of the last benefits that they have–their health care.”
WHILE PAWLENTY TRAVELS, DFL LOOKS FOR HOUSE VOTES
Pawlenty was in Washington D.C. when the bill passed. His spokesman, Brian McClung, released a statement saying Pawlenty will veto the bill from Washington. He said the bill spends too much and includes quote “no reform.” On Thursday, Pawlenty was on a call from Washington D.C. with reporters in Nevada criticizing President Obama’s upcoming trip to that state. He declined to say why he would veto the bill when this Minnesota reporter asked him about it.
Read more about Pawlenty’s Nevada conference call on Polinaut.
“We’re trying to limit this to the Nevada press but Brian McClung has outlined the reasons for that in a communication to you and if hasn’t he will shortly,” Pawlenty said.
“Can you identify what your main objections to it?” the reporter asked.
“It will be the ones that Brian [McClung] identifies for you when you get that information if you haven’t already.”
Pawlenty, who appears to be gearing up for a run for president in 2012, is scheduled to speak to a group of activists at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington Friday morning. While he’s in Washington D.C., Democrats and Republicans in Minnesota will frantically count heads to see if an override will happen.
In the state Senate, Democrats have enough votes to override a veto. The key question is the House where Democrats are three members short of an override. 38 House Republicans and all 87 Democrats voted for the bill on Thursday. It takes 90 votes to override a veto. House Minority Leader Kurt Zellers, R-Maple Grove, is confident Republicans will stick together and uphold the governor’s veto. He said he thinks any GAMC solution should be included in a plan to fix the state’s $1.2 billion budget deficit.
“We think it’s part of a bigger budget solution,” Zellers said. “This should be a part of it, the GAMC fix or a new program should be a part of that fix. We’re going to work together again, just like we did with this version of it to find a solution that not only the governor can agree to but the house and senate can agree to as well.”
But Democrats say they’ll remind Republicans that many of the hospitals in their districts stand to lose millions if an override doesn’t happen. The House was unsuccessful in its attempt to override Pawlenty’s veto of funding for GAMC last year.
The only successful override during Pawlenty’s time as governor was in 2008 on a transportation bill that raised several taxes to pay for transportation projects.
February 18, 2010| Posted in Articles, Current Issue - Frontpage, Front Page Slideshow
Paul Thissen earned the highest rating of any candidate for governor in either political party on the Legislative Report Card on Racial Equity. Thissen was the second-highest scoring legislator, overall.
The Organizing Apprenticeship Project, a Minnesota non-profit that advocates for racial equity, compiled the Report Card. Thissen was named a “champion for racial equity” because of his efforts to advocate for racial equity in the 2009 legislative session.
“Last session, because of the leadership of Paul Thissen, Minnesota made progress toward racial justice. Progress included requiring hiring equity for green jobs and advancing parity in the criminal justice system,” said Jermaine Toney of Organizing Apprenticeship Project. “Unfortunately, Governor Tim Pawlenty’s unilateral cuts to programs providing critical support for communities of color and low-income families undermined many of the good legislative accomplishments in the 2009 session.”
Thissen was thrilled with the rating, adding, “Minnesota is a changing state. We are more diverse, growing older, and competing in a global economy. As Legislators and leaders, we need to be vigilant about the impact that our decisions have on diverse Minnesota communities. It is rewarding to have that vigilance recognized by advocates for racial equity.”
For a complete copy of the 2009 Minnesota Legislative Report Card on Race Equity, please go to OAP’s website at www.oaproject.org
July 22, 2009| Posted in Articles, Front Page Slideshow
MARSHALL – Minnesota’s next governor will deal with a budget deficit and a recovering economy, but must do so with more vision than what’s been used in the past, said Rep. Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis, and candidate for governor. A governor and his administration and Legislature can’t just make cuts in the budget and move money from one area to another to solve a budget crisis, said Thissen, who made a campaign stop in Marshall on Tuesday.
“Unless there is a broader discussion on who we want to be as a people,” Thissen said the budget and related issues won’t be resolved for the long term.
While he agrees with Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s statements that health care costs are increasing at an unsustainable rate, Thissen disagrees with Pawlenty’s approach.
Recent cuts in General Assistance Medical Care (GAMC) mean more people will be without insurance, because the cuts in the long run mean more expensive visits to emergency rooms, Thissen said.
The cuts also mean an increase in those with mental illnesses who will be without insurance, he said. That will also be more of a long-term cost to the state. At the least, the state must make sure those with mental health issues have insurance coverage for their medications, Thissen said.
“The dominant idea that the best way to succeed is for everybody to make it on their own, (needs to change),” Thissen said.
Minnesotans must consider the obligations they have to each other and then, talk more broadly about solutions and priorities, Thissen said.
To read the rest of the article, click here.
July 4, 2009| Posted in Articles, Front Page Slideshow, Health Care, In the News, News Media
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.
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