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Minnesota lawmakers unveil universal health plan
A group of DFL lawmakers unveiled a single payer health plan designed to cover all Minnesotans, and leave insurance companies largely out of the mix. "Of five million Minnesotans about 400,000 are totally uninsured," Senator David Bly of Northfield told reporters, "Three to four times that many are insured, but underinsured." Representative Shelley Madore of Apple Valley added, "I challenge you to go back and read your insurance policies carefully and find out what's really covered and what's not." Madore spoke of her own family's experience of going out of network for a diagnostic test not covered by her plan. "He did a back x-ray, a $25 back x-ray which we were denied through our primary care clinic, and discovered that my daughter had a tumor on her spine." She said that diagnosis led to surgery at the University of Minnesota for the daughter, who has spina bifida, and the need for ongoing physical and occupational therapy. "While I'm trying to absorb this, the social worker from the billing office comes in and she says to me, 'Mam we'd like to know what you're going to do about the $60,000 balance.' And I said, 'I'm sorry? I'm insured'." Madore was informed she taken the wrong route through the system. "I paid all my premiums and I got regular medical care, yet I had a medical emergency and I was being told that $60,000 just for the surgery was not going to be covered." The principle architect of the Minnesota Health Plan, Senator John Marty, figures it will take three or more years to enact all the legislation required to create it. He knows he'll face a battle with insurers and fellow legislators who are philosophically opposed to more government involvement in health care. Governor Pawlenty's communications director Brian McClung said as much Monday, calling the governor "opposed to government-run health care." He said Pawlenty is working on other plans in conjunction with a task force. But Marty argues a state system could save Minnesotans and government over the long run. "You avoid insurance company marketing and underwriting, you avoid the need for three or four billing clerks in every doctor's office, you save money by price negotiations for prescription drugs." In theory the premiums that insured persons and their employers now pay into private plans would go instead to a government health fund to pay for services. That fund would pay providers directly. "It's not socialized medicine or a government run system," said Ann Settgast, MD, "But a system that is paid for through public funding but delivered privately as it is now." Settgast is a Twin Cities physician who belongs to Physicians for a National Health Care Program. The group's mission statement reads: "The U.S. spends twice as much as other industrialized nations on health care, $7,129 per capita. Yet our system performs poorly in comparison and still leaves 47 million without health coverage and millions more inadequately covered." Doctor Settgast told Capitol reporters Monday that even caring for insured patients has become more challenging because of shifting policies and plans. "These are patients who, for no good reason, I will have to change five medications in one visit because they've changed insurance plans and now their formulary is new," remarked Settgast. "I mean as a physician the last thing you want to do is to take something that's working and change it. And we've run into this every single day." It's a system Senator Marty considers penny wise but foolish, forcing many to forego preventative care. "Last year in Minnesota dental care, which was denied to many millions of Minnesotans, was the cause of 22,000 emergency room visits," Marty offered, "Emergency room doctor gives you an anti-biotic to fix the problem and says go see your dentist in the morning. You don't have dentist. The antibiotic clears the infection but you're back in three or four months." Marty concedes a relatively high percentage of Minnesota residents are insured. "Minnesota covers more people than virtually every other state, and we spend less on health care than most other states." However he argues the price of health care per patient is lower in nations with single payer systems. "Look at other countries that cover everyone. Often the average cost is a little over half of what we're spending."
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