EDITORIAL: Legislature: Health insurance bill will benefit many – Yahoo News
Apr. 3—Once again, we find ourselves applauding Republicans and Democrats in the Minnesota Legislature for compromising on important health insurance affordability legislation.
The so called “reinsurance” bill will continue to pay a hefty state subsidy of $700 million over three years to subsidize insurance bought on the MNsure exchange and through private insurers helping self-employed people and others without company insurance buy affordable health insurance. Another $173 million will be shifted from another health care fund to support the plan.
And affordability is the key. The subsidies lowered health insurance premiums in some cases by half or more. Many more Minnesotans are covered by decent health care as a result. That saves money in the long run avoiding expensive emergency room treatments.
Funds from the American Recovery Plan Act passed last year by Democrats in Congress and President Joe Biden also helped subsidize insurance plans bought on the MNsure exchange.
The reinsurance system was set up in 2017 as a way to lower skyrocketing health insurance rates for the self-employed and small business owners. Because the money went to insurance companies and not directly to ratepayers, Democrats have long seen the payments as subsidies to big insurance companies that didn’t need them.
But the rates have been kept down under the plan, showing that it is mostly working as intended.
About 163,000 people in Minnesota purchase health insurance through MNsure. Another 235,000 use the individual marketplace. The timing of the bill’s passage comes just days before the federal approval of the state reinsurance plan would have expired, risking skyrocketing premiums for those buyers.
Credit goes to Democrat Zack Stephenson, DFL-Coon Rapids, who carried the bill in the House, and Sen. Gary Dahms, R-Redwood Falls, who carried it in the Senate.
Democrats would have preferred that a public option to buy insurance as part of MinnesotaCare be included. Republicans wanted to extend the program five years instead of three. Both parties were willing and able to compromise and in the end prevent insurance rates from skyrocketing for nearly a half million Minnesotans.
It’s another good example of solving problems in a bipartisan way.
