Today the Senate passed a broad Health and Human Services omnibus bill that fails to assist patients, and instead focuses on costly mandates, funding controversial grants, and growing welfare programs. The cost of the bill equates to $6.1 billion in fiscal year 24-25, and $6.6 billion in fiscal year 26-27.
The bill has a number of concerning provisions:
- Study on the implementation of single-payer healthcare in Minnesota
- “Keeping Nurses at the Bedside Act” mandating hospitals to create nurse staffing committees
- Creation of a Healthcare Affordability Board, comprised of government appointees, and an additional Health Care Affordability Advisory Council, which is appointed by the Governor for the sole purpose of providing advice to the Board
- Public option buy-out which will drive up costs by forcing medical assistance enrollees to move to fee-for-service plans
- Creation of a state-funded cost-sharing reduction program, which will increase the cost of care
- Additional funds for the fraud-ridden Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP)
- An increase of payment rates for abortion services by 10%
“Healthcare should be affordable, reliable, and accessible, but today’s bill focuses instead on increasing mandates and costs, while decreasing quality of care,” said Senator Paul Utke (R-Park Rapids), Republican Lead on the Health and Human Services Committee. “We should be looking at ways to increase affordability and quality of care, and I find it concerning that we are instead funding new governing boards, troublesome studies, and mandates that will only hurt folks across the state. The partisan nature of this bill is glaringly evident, and I’m disappointed Senate Democrats were unwilling to work across the aisle to create a bill that that makes health care safer and more affordable for Minnesotans.”
Included language denotes a clear intent to move Minnesota to a single-player healthcare system, undoubtedly the most controversial part of the bill. The bill funds and requires the Commissioner of Health to contract an analysis of the benefits and costs of universal health care financing proposals. A previous study on the economic impact of a single-payer health system in Minnesota found the program would require a 10% payroll tax on employers and would eliminate 42,000 jobs in the state. Senate Republicans offered an amendment to eliminate this unnecessary study from the bill, but it was not accepted.
Another controversial provision is the inclusion of the “Keeping Nurses at the Bedside Act.” This contentious language mandates that hospitals create a hospital nurse staffing committee to create and implement staffing plans to guide the creation of daily staffing schedules for each inpatient care unit in the hospital. With hospitals across the state being short-staffed, there is great concern that this Act will do the opposite of its namesake and will instead pull nurses away from patients. This section of the bill also sets an unattainable nursing staffing ratio and gives nurses discretion to refuse care to patients. This section also fails to address violence against healthcare workers in any meaningful way.
Senate Republicans offered a number of key amendments to the bill:
- Transfer of funding to school-based mental health programs (Sen. Gruenhagen)
- Parental consent for school-based health center treatments (Sen. Lieske)
- Elimination of the Healthcare Affordability Advisory Council (Sen. Gruenhagen)
- Deletion of language and funding for single-payer healthcare studies (Sen. Gruenhagen)
These amendments were struck down on strict party-line votes. Senate Democrats did opt to accept an amendment offered by Sen. Rasmusson, which adds Optometrist Scope of Practice language.