Health care bill clears Legislature; will Pawlenty sign it?

05/13/2008

The legislation would change the way health care in Minnesota is provided.


By WARREN WOLFE,
Star Tribune
Last update: May 13, 2008


Fifteen months in the making, a bill changing how health care in Minnesota is provided and paid for was approved late Monday by the Legislature, a measure one sponsor said "is at least the first stage on the road to health-care reform."

However, the bill faces a possible veto when it reaches Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who has expressed misgivings, and the 83-50 vote by which it cleared the House was short of the margin needed for an override. The Senate approved the measure 53-13.

Although significant, the changes provided by the bill are far less dramatic than those recommended at the start of the session by separate panels appointed by the governor and the Legislature.

The bill would start a statewide campaign to reduce smoking and obesity and offer public data on the quality and costs of doctor and hospital services.

The bill would also certify doctors and clinics that provide "medical homes" with comprehensive and coordinated care, and expand eligibility to add about 40,000 people to MinnesotaCare, the insurance program for lower-income working poor.

Even that scaled-back version still may be vetoed, however. Pawlenty has proposed using some of the Health Care Access Fund reserves to balance the state budget, leaving less for the health-care bill.

At a news briefing earlier Monday, he complained that the bill would spend most of the reserves without resolving budget issues. "We're having a hard time paying for the [budget items] we have, much less adding the new ones," he said.

Pawlenty also has taken issue with the expansion of the MinnesotaCare program at a time when medical care is consuming an ever-greater portion of government budgets.

During House debate Monday night, Rep. Laura Brod, R-New Prague, said: "Throwing more people into a public system is not reform. It's more of the same."