ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Gov. Mark Dayton wants people to know how much money HMOs and other health plans earn from their contracts with the state to provide health care to lower income Minnesotans.
He signed an executive order Wednesday, instructing the Commissioner of Commerce to perform regular audits of managed care contracts, to verify how much the plans pocket after expenses.
The state pays those plans roughly $3 billion per year to provide subsidized health services for 500,000 Minnesotans, according to Scott Leitz, the assistant commissioner of Human Services.
"One of the reasons we're looking at this is to insure that whatever income the plans earn off the administration of our programs, that we insure it's adequate and sufficient, but also it's a responsible level," Leitz told KARE.
Leitz said what the health plans earn by administering the programs varies from year to year, ranging from zero to three percent based on what the plans report to the state.
Three percent of $3 billion equates to $90 million, a figure that drew the attention of watchdog groups earlier this year. The U-Care system voluntarily returned $30 in excess earnings to the state, in recognition of the $5 billion projected budget gap.
"What this is really about is making sure we're doing our work, at the Department of Human Services to make sure the contracts we enter into with plans are good ones, and that they're open and honest ones, and they get really good services for the taxpayer's dollar."
Dayton's order also establishes a website so that citizens can more easily track the data already submitted by health plans, which is public information.
Health Care Finance Battle
In the meantime, legislative panels continued to hammer out health care spending bills that would fundamentally alter health care for low income Minnesotans. The Senate version would, in fact, end the Minnesota Care program in its current form.
Sen. David Hann, R - Eden Prairie, proposed issuing vouchers instead, which could be used to buy high deductible plans on the private insurance market. That would require a special waiver from the federal government, which tightly controls how Medicaid dollars are spent.
"We cannot afford to continue to see the kinds of costs we've seen in this budget area over the years, many of which are driven by decisions made outside of the state," Sen. Hann said, referring to the strings attached to the federal health care money given to Minnesota.
Gov. Dayton used the term "fantasy island" to describe Republicans decision to write budget bills that rely on federal waivers that aren't likely to be granted.
Sen. Tom Bakk, D - Cook, echoed that skepticism Wednesday.
"That's reaching for the sky," Sen. Bakk told reporters, "The idea that we're going to apply for a federal waiver, and then score $300 million in savings because we presume the federal government's going to give us that waiver."
"That's not real money!" he added, "What if the federal government doesn't give us that waiver?"
Sen. John Marty, D - Roseville, predicted emergency rooms would be flooded with people if the voucher plan were to become law.
"People with high deductible plans can't afford health care," he said, "If you can't afford to pay those deductibles, frankly there are going to be a lot of people without health care."
Hann's bill also includes many controversial policy provisions, including the end to routing DNA testing of newborns, mandatory parental consent for minors seeking abortions, and general funding cuts for family planning clinics.
Hann told colleagues that even with cutbacks in projected spending, his bill would raise actual human services spending $700 million, going from $10.1 billion in the current biennium to $10.8 billion in the next one.
"As difficult as some of these decisions are it's in the context of what we've been asked to do, trying to be fiscally responsible and manage our budget within the means we have."
(Copyright 2011 by KARE. All Rights Reserved.)
You Might Be Interested In