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Health Care Reinsurance Bill Advances
Posted
March 9, 2017
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March 9, 2017
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1:15:45Now PlayingThe difficulties facing lawmakers attempting to ensure health care insurance access were on display in the Senate Finance Committee Thursday, March 9 in light of likely changes in federal policy and the recent collapse of Minnesota's individual marketplace. Senator Gary Dahms, R-Redwood Falls, presented SF 720, which would create a state-based reinsurance program in an effort to help insurance companies moderate risk in the volatile individual health insurance market. Under the bill, the state would reimburse insurance companies 80 percent of their costs for claims exceeding $45,000, up to $250,000, per person in that market.
The bulk of the debate surrounded an amendment which would transfer $360 million dollars from the Health Care Access Fund and $240 million dollars from the budget reserve over the next biennium.
Senator Richard Cohen, DFL-St. Paul, said, "If we're going to budget for these kinds of important issues, we should do it in a real substantive way and not utilize one-time money and, above all, not use the budget reserve for issues and expenditures that are far beyond the scope of what was ever intended legislatively by the budget reserve."
Senator John Marty, DFL-Roseville, and Senator Tony Lourey, DFL-Kerrick, believe the bill is too costly and doesn't guarantee that insurance networks will expand and statewide access to care will improve.
Senator Carla Nelson, R-Rochester, said, "I am not confident that we are adequately spreading the risk and that's what insurance does. Insurance is the law of large numbers. But we do need to move forward on this, we can't dilly-dally any longer. We have to make the best decision with the information we have in front of us, as much as it might be incomplete at this point."
"The individual market collapsed," said Senate author Gary Dahms. "We got to do something to try to bring that individual market back into a competitive position."
The amendment was adopted and the bill passed on a party line vote of 8-5. It will next be heard on the Senate Floor.
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