On Monday, Mar. 1st, the Senate voted to pass legislation to extend Minnesota’s Premium Security Plan. This plan was passed in 2017, as a supplement to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to assure individual premiums would be kept affordable for Minnesotans during the transition to a public option. It has more or less worked, but has not fixed the root of the problem nor has it kept health premiums at an affordable level to families and individuals. This stopgap measure is not a long-term solution towards insurance affordability and has been recommended to end this year by the governor, since its purpose had been achieved.
There have been many concerns brought forward by groups like the Minnesota Nurses Association, TakeActionMN, and the Land Stewardship Project about reinsurance and its ineffectualness towards actually creating affordable options for Minnesotans. This bill has no mechanisms for insurance companies to make premiums affordable to their insurers. It also does nothing to give transparency of the usage of state money to provide for greater accountability of these funds.
In this legislative session, DFLers have brought forward numerous bills to provide affordable and accessible healthcare to Minnesotans that will address the problem. (SF 1029) (SF 694)
