Today in Northfield, Senate Select Committee Heard About Coming MN Impacts from Concerned Health Care Officials, Farmers, Local Leaders
SAINT PAUL, Minn. – Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy (DFL- St. Paul) said that at a roundtable discussion in Northfield today, more Minnesotans voiced deep concerns about the increases in health care costs for tens of thousands of people across the state that are coming as a direct result of the federal budget enacted recently by President Trump and the Republican Congress.
The input from Minnesotans was gathered at a meeting of the Senate Select Subcommittee on Federal Impacts on Minnesotans and Economic Stability, which is preparing for the budget fallout of deep federal health care cuts and how those cuts will impact the state budget and people’s ability to afford and access health care services.
“Minnesotans are expressing significant concerns to sharply rising health care costs. The Republicans’ budget eliminated the tax credits that tens of thousands of people across the state rely upon to afford their health care coverage,” said Majority Leader Murphy. “Today in Northfield, Minnesota farmers, health care officials and local leaders told a bipartisan committee of Senators that without the help provided by the tax credits, tens of thousands of Minnesotans will see significant premium increases. Many people will lose coverage, and their care will be uncompensated, hurting providers and further destabilizing hospitals and clinics. I’ll never understand how every Republican member of Congress from Minnesota voted to raise Minnesotan’s health care costs to pay for trillions of dollars in tax cuts for wealthy millionaires and billionaires. So many Minnesotans will be hurt.”
Last week the Minnesota Department of Commerce released new insurance rates for premiums on the individual market, including the MNsure marketplace, that will take effect for Minnesotans on January 1, 2026. Provisions in the federal budget passed by Republicans in Congress and their failure to extend enhanced premium tax credits drove these rate hikes. These federal changes will force Minnesotans to pay more for less coverage.
About 187,000 Minnesotans are covered on the individual market, and nearly 90,000 receive enhanced premium tax credits to make coverage more affordable. The expiration of the enhanced premium tax credits will lead to an average monthly increase of $177. These cost increases, and other federal changes like ending automatic renewals, are expected to cause over 62,000 Minnesotans to drop private coverage, on top of 140,000 losing coverage because of Medicaid cuts.
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