A recently passed proposal in the House to reform Minnesota Care is not receiving a warm a welcome from the Senate or Governor Mark Dayton.
Representative Matt Dean of Dellwood has authored a bill to move 95,000 Minnesota Care recipients and those enrolled in MNSURE to one new plan, a Minnesota Care II plan. Through this plan Minnesotans would purchase private insurance directly from the insurer, with a premium subsidy if needed. The proposed plan would reportedly save Minnesotan taxpayers 900 million dollars. Alpha News originally touched on this topic in early April. Since then the bill has passed the House, but has no sponsor in the Senate.
Alpha News spoke with the sponsor of the bill, Representative Dean, who states, “…for working families, lower income families and middle income families, to be able to provide more choices on the healthcare exchange is going to be a good thing to offer more choices and actually lower premiums. We had predicted 600,000 people would show up for MNSURE, only 60,000 have, so that means it’s a program that people don’t want. We need to provide something that actually works for people, and one we can afford as a state. So that’s what we’re putting on the table, and we hope the Governor takes it seriously and kind of moves away from this ‘my way or the highway’ and a shut down mentality and engages with us”
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