MN Healthcare Reform
Position Summary
Healthcare reform for all Minnesotans is one of my top priorities. We need private healthcare reform not continuing the ObamaCare mandates, which have been a disaster. ObamaCare has resulted in skyrocketing premiums and deductibles. A 2017 study by the Department of Human Services (DHS) indicated that 1.2 million Minnesotans did not seek needed health care due to high costs in 2017.
In order to fulfill the ObamaCare mandates states were incentivized to expand Medicaid. It is important to understand that Medicaid reimburses doctors and hospitals at a financial loss. According to a Star Tribune article dated 5/5/2019, 30 hospitals in Minnesota are currently listed as financially distressed and 12 rural hospitals had negative operating margins and are in danger of closing. The result has been that rural hospitals no longer belong to their communities; they belong to large healthcare conglomerates.
Healthcare executives in large metropolitan areas are making decisions on the amount of healthcare available in your rural communities not based upon need, but on costs. We are also facing a severe doctor shortage in the near future. All of these concerns have been aggravated and exasperated by the implementation of Obamacare.
If you have doubts, listen to the comments by former presidential Democrat candidate John Delaney who raised this question in a debate: “If you go to every hospital in this country and you ask them one question, which is ‘how would it have been for you last year if every one of your bills were paid at the Medicare rate?’ Every single hospital administrator said they would close.”
John Delaney also brought up his fear about the low reimbursement of government run healthcare. “If you start underpaying all the healthcare providers, you’re going to create a two-tier market where wealthy people buy their healthcare with cash…. while people like my dad, the union electrician, will be forced into an underfunded (government rationed healthcare) system.”
I completely agree.
Democrats support a single-payer health insurance plan in Minnesota which will create skyrocketing costs, higher taxes, less access to healthcare, and a two-tier health care system; one for the rich who will have immediate access and another second-rate healthcare system for the rest of us.
The Leven Group did a study estimating the cost of a government run, single-payer health insurance plan in Minnesota at $35 billion per year. For perspective, Minnesota’s 2017 two-year biennium budget was $46 billion. If we were to implement a single-payer health plan it would increase the biennium budget in Minnesota to over $100 billion. This is completely unrealistic and unsustainable!
For further evidence considerer the false promises and lies under Obamacare causing millions of Americans to suffer:
False: “You can keep your doctor.”
False: “You can keep your current health insurance plan.”
False: “Your family health insurance premiums will go down $2500 a year.”
False: “Senior citizens would not be jeopardized.”
False: “No one earning less than $250,000 a year would see a tax increase.”
False: “Obamacare would create 4 million new jobs; 400,000 almost immediately.”
Patient-centered, market-driven solutions and reforms will make the patient “King” of their healthcare decisions and when implemented under the Republican healthcare plan it will:
Lower healthcare costs
Increase patient access for all Minnesotans.
Reduce and eventually eliminate the uninsured.
Cover pre-existing conditions.
Free the doctor to practice medicine.
Allow patients to keep the doctor of their choice.
Raise reimbursement rates to doctors and hospitals ending cost shifting.
Improve overall healthcare outcomes for patients.
Reduce or eliminate taxes and mandates and frivolous lawsuits that drive up healthcare costs.
Create transparency in healthcare so patients can actually see and compare the cost of their care.
Having a competitive healthcare system that reimburses doctors and hospitals at a more reasonable rate ispossible here in Minnesota; however, we must vote out politicians who promise free healthcare for all (including illegal immigrants) and then tell us the lie that we will receive excellent healthcare access. This is not possible without bankrupting our state and implementing a second-rate rationed healthcare system for the majority of Minnesotans.
We can and we must do better for ourselves and our children and grandchildren!