To help small businesses, Minnesota explores 'buy-in' option for health coverage – BusinessNorth.com

The Minnesota Senate has voted to extend the state’s reinsurance initiative, designed to keep health premium costs lower, but backers of a separate plan to expand eligibility for a key assistance program said it would help small businesses including farmers afford coverage.

Under a House bill, MinnesotaCare, which helps cover medical expenses for low-income residents, would open up to others.

Those who make too much to qualify for insurance subsidies, but also have trouble accessing employer-sponsored coverage, could buy lower premiums through MinnesotaCare.

Steven Read, co-owner of Shepard’s Way Farms near Nerstrand, said affordability issues do not just hurt producers, but their communities as well.

“That’s a loss of creativity, a loss of business, a loss of economic power that these small towns are suffering from, and farmers are faced with those same realities,” Read explained.

Supporters cited cost issues in premiums sold through MNSure, Minnesota’s marketplace under the Affordable Care Act. The expansion has cleared some committees in the DFL-led House.

Senate Republicans say reinsurance, which offers payments to insurers who cover high-cost patients, is a better way to prevent premiums from going up. Roughly 4.5% of Minnesotans are uninsured. 

Rep. Jennifer Schultz, DFL-Duluth, a sponsor of the MinnesotaCare plan, argued reinsurance was meant to be a temporary approach to reforming insurance costs. She said the House proposal should not be viewed as “government takeover” of health care in the state.

“It is a private-public partnership, meaning that we provide public subsidies,” Schultz pointed out. “But the health care is privately provided by health care providers across the state, which we have very strong networks of health care providers in the MinnesotaCare product line.”

The buy-in option idea for MinnesotaCare has been debated in past legislative sessions.

Meanwhile, Read contended the plan could pave the way for small farm owners to reinvest in their operations, noting they can see setbacks when a partner has to take a separate job, so a family can get coverage.

“That’s a reality that lots of farm families have to face every day is, ‘Well, someone has to get health insurance,’ ” Read observed. “So, we’re going to lose the contribution that person can make to the farming operation.”

Another provision would offer eligibility to undocumented individuals. House Republicans argued government money should not be used for that purpose, but Schultz countered they pay taxes and deserve access to MinnesotaCare.

CLICK HERE for the full story.