Onward to Health Care Reform II

Onward to Health Care Reform II

It was disappointing that the T.R. Reid event scheduled for February 23rd was cancelled.  Hopefully it can be rescheduled for later this year.

Health care issues are still brewing in the MN State Legislature.  We attended an information house party on Sunday, February 27th, in Savage.  Senator John Marty came to discuss health care reform at the state level.  He was met by an enthusiast group of people with questions and concerns.

 

John started the conversation with a summary of the nine principles any health care reform must include.  Those interested can find these principles at:  http://mnhealthplan.org/principles.html.  The Minnesota Health Act was drafted to meet these principles.  John Marty, as the primary author, first introduced the bill to create the Minnesota Health Plan (MHP) in the previous legislative session.  It passed four committees and was endorsed by over 70 Legislators.  The bill has been re-introduced this session as; Senate File SF-8 and House File HF-51.  Because of the change in the makeup of the Legislature, the bills will probably not be supported in this legislative biennium.  At the house party, there was much discussion about the MHP; what it covers, the cost savings and how it would be funded.  It is estimated we could save 20 to 25% as a state and still cover everyone’s health care needs.  

We learned that Sen. Marty has authored another bill to address concerns over the high costs to insure people in our public Medical Assistance (MA) and Minnesota Care programs through HMO’s.  The bill is SF-457, the “Managed care oversight and accountability in health care program contracts requirement”. 

This bill:

• Directs the Dept. of Human Services to directly administer the 95,000 new MA recipients

• Specifies that, where we continue to contract with the HMO Plans, that the bids for these contracts be truly competitive

• Demands that the Plans receiving state business keep their books using Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and undergo regular audits

This bill is in response to concerns raised in earlier health committee meetings as noted in our previous article.  Let’s hope the bill has strong bipartisan support!

There is interesting news from the Connecticut state government.  In January 2012, their agency that administers medical assistance to its low-income residents will eliminate using taxpayer dollars on managed care insurers.  Instead, it will switch to fee-for-service for cost savings.  This is similar to what John Marty’s bill is all about.

Some encouraging news has come out of Washington D.C.  President Obama has endorsed a senate bill giving states flexibility in their approach to health care reform.  The bill would allow states to begin implementation of reform plans starting in 2014 rather than 2017 as currently stipulated in the Affordable Care Act (ACA).  These plans must meet or exceed the criteria in the ACA and would give states flexibility in their approach to health care reform.

(c)2011 Senate District 25 DFL / Steve & Joan Janusz. All rights reserved.



Note: Opinions expressed in this article are that of the authors and do not neccessarly reflect the views of the Senate District 25 DFL or DFL in general.