Paul Thissen: Innovation in Action

Remarks on the Children’s Health Security Act

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.

Speech at Dedication of All Veterans Memorial

I am very honored to be with you this afternoon to participate in the unveiling of the All Veterans Memorial.

Thank you to all of you who have played such a significant role in making the idea of this Memorial a reality.

There is no more fitting place for this Memorial to rise than in Richfield – a community built by veterans, a community marked for decades by the spirit of civic engagement lived out by those men and women.

But it is also important to remember that this is a Memorial to Veterans from across the State of Minnesota. Men and women from all corners of the state will be memorialized on the tablets here.

It is for that reason that I was proud to be part of an effort in the state legislature – with leadership from Sen Dan Larson and Rep Linda Slocum and Governor Pawlenty – to get the State of Minnesota to invest $100,000 in state resources to match the incredibly generous private support of countless individuals and groups like the IBEW. Read Full Entry…

Speech to the Minnesota Pipe Trades on Jobs

Thank you for allowing me to speak to you for a few minutes.  It has been a great pleasure to work with your groups and particularly Carl Crimmins and Tom Hansen before he retired on issues at the capitol.

During his 1960 campaign, John Kennedy spoke here in Minnesota and he defined the challenge facing the country this way:

The reason Minnesota has suffered recent recessions is because the economy has not been moving.  Other countries have outproduced us economically, not because they have more capacity, but because they are using their capacity to the fullest.  We have not used our economic capacity or the capacity of our citizens in an imaginative way.  This country – and I would say this state – cannot possibly maintain itself unless it moves here at home, unless we maintain full employment and we meet our responsibilities to our own citizens.”

Kennedy was right.  The key to our success; the key to our prosperity is making sure we use all our resources and every Minnesotan to his or her fullest capacity.

Minnesotans want to work; they value labor and skill. My family has been in the state since the 1860s working as farmers and laborers and teachers and railroadmen.  Minnesotans are all about hard work.

We need to create a state where hard work and high skill can be put to good use. Read Full Entry…

Introductory Remarks at Jewish Community Center Forum on Health Care

Thank you for inviting me to participate in this forum and for your willingness to come out and listen and discuss health care in Minnesota.

I firmly believe that how we handle the challenge of health care (along with the issue of energy and climate change) will be the defining domestic issue of our time.

Getting it right is an economic imperative and a political imperative.  But I am pleased at the context in which tonight’s discussion is taking place, because getting health care right is above all a moral imperative.

Just as past generations in this country have worked for and made progress toward economic security and racial equity and justice, in our time we must move forward toward health care for all.

We often frame that discussion as a matter of “universal coverage” and focus on the fact of how many among us remain uninsured.

And that is important; indeed, it could be a matter of life or death.  According to an analysis by Families USA, three working age Minnesotans die each week due to lack of health insurance.  This is a problem we have to solve. Read Full Entry…

Speech to Minnesota Council on Disabilities

Thanks for the invitation and opportunity to speak with you.  I know many of you and look forward to working with more of you.

This is an exciting time for me and for the state.  It is one of those rare moments when we can seriously consider the many opportunities we have to move good public policy forward in the state, before other realities sink in.

Let me make sure to state as well that I and our DFL caucus – both leadership and members – takes the responsibility of governing very seriously.  We understand the need to move beyond political expedience to real results.

I will also say that we cannot achieve that without your input and the input of other Minnesotans from across the state.  We often discussed during the campaign the role of the legislature in engaging Minnesotans in real and productive conversations about our state and it people and its future.  Not everything will lead to new laws.  But it has been too long since we have had those broader conversations and the time is right to do so.

Our doors will be open to new ideas, to concerns and to constructive criticism. Read Full Entry…