Gov. Mark Dayton unveiled a plan Thursday to blunt soaring health insurance premiums, as politicians in both parties scramble to respond to the crisis in Minnesota’s individual health insurance market.
With just a week and a half until Election Day, Democrats and Republicans are rolling out proposal after proposal to help the roughly 5 percent of Minnesotans who get their insurance on the individual market. They’re also accusing each other of not taking the problem seriously, part of a battle to win the votes of Minnesotans concerned about health care with control of the Legislature up for grabs.
Just one day after Republican House Speaker Kurt Daudt said Dayton was “literally playing politics” over health care, Dayton said Republicans “are now trying to maximize their political advantages” by attacking the Affordable Care Act.
The battle matters given the current divided control of the Legislature. Even if one party takes both chambers in the Nov. 8 election, the current body of lawmakers will remain in office for the remainder of the year — and all sides agree a solution can’t wait until January.
Instead, everyone wants a special legislative session in the next few weeks to pass relief. But the two parties remain far apart about what kind of relief should be offered.
123,000 BEARING FULL BRUNT OF PREMIUM HIKES
Open enrollment for 2017 begins Nov. 1 and runs through Jan. 31, 2017. Officials are urging Minnesotans to sign up early because most insurers are capping the number of total customers they will accept.
Dayton’s plan comes after similar plans have been rolled out by Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature. All of them aim to provide immediate financial relief to Minnesotans affected by soaring premiums, while some go further to tackle other aspects of the individual market.
Affected are the roughly 5 percent of Minnesotans who buy individual insurance, as opposed to the majority of Minnesotans who get health care from their employer or a government program. These customers are facing premium increases of 50 percent or more, the fourth-highest in the country.
Minnesotans who earn less than 400 percent of the federal poverty line — $47,000 for an individual or $97,200 for a family of four — can get relief from federal tax credits if they buy insurance from the state-run MNsure exchange. These tax credits rise with the cost of a benchmark premium, and so can offset or even negate premium increases.
But Minnesotans who earn more than that cutoff aren’t eligible for any aid. An estimated 123,000 Minnesotans could be left to bear the full cost of premiums, such as the $2,378 per month administration officials estimated a family of four in Rochester might pay.
PROPOSED FIXES
Dayton’s plan would provide a 25 percent premium rebate to Minnesotans who don’t qualify for federal subsidies. The monthly state-funded rebates could be worth hundreds of dollars, depending on the premium a given household is facing.
Overall Dayton’s administration estimated the rebates would reduce average premium increases of 55 percent to an average increase of 16 percent.
The total cost of this program would be capped at $313 million, the current surplus currently scheduled to be added to the state’s budget reserve.
Some important parts of Dayton’s plan remain up in the air. For example, he would have health insurers themselves administer the rebates and be reimbursed by the state — but Minnesota’s insurers have not yet agreed to this plan.
Dayton’s plan is similar to cash rebates proposed by Democrats in the House and Senate, though it’s simpler. Dayton said that simplicity is intentional because he wants a system that could be jump-started in just a month or two.
Republicans in both chambers also have proposed giving tax credits or deductions to offset the cost of premiums. But Republicans also want emergency relief to fix other problems with the individual market. For example, House Republicans are backing a tax credit to cover costs Minnesotans face for seeing an out-of-network physician.
Democratic leaders say they want to tackle longer-term issues with the individual market early next year after further study of the problem with key stakeholders, while Republicans say the Legislature should go beyond immediate relief in a special session.