October 13-16, 2016
Oct 13 08:39 Minnesota's health insurance crisis Oct 13 12:22 DFL's desperate deflection Oct 13 22:29 DFL, Dayton ruined a great thing Oct 14 04:05 NRCC's Craig ad rings true Oct 14 09:37 SC Times undermines School Board Oct 15 09:01 MNsure's imminent collapse Oct 16 00:24 Rejecting Dayton, DFL, failure Oct 16 08:31 DFL MNsure statements: then vs. now Oct 16 11:13 Senate DFL MNsure reforms?
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Minnesota's health insurance crisis
Minnesota's health insurance crisis was exclusively created by the DFL. They own this crisis because a) they created it, b) they voted down every amendment proposed by Republicans and c) the DFL sat on a GOP bill that would've fixed many of the problems.
This LTE highlights just how big this crisis is. What caught my attention is the paragraph that says "The new rates for MNsure are now available. The cheapest rate I could find for my wife and myself is $1,866 a month, or $22,292 a year, with a $12,800 copay, if we have to use the plan. That is $35,192 for one year."
That might be affordable for DFL elitists like Gov. Dayton but it's ultra-expensive to farmers and other small business owners. Meanwhile, while middle class Minnesotans get hurt, DFL congressional candidates like Angie Craig, Rick Nolan and Terri Bonoff haven't proposed anything new to fix the ACA. While it's disappointing, it's predictable. That trio of Democrats are ideologues when it comes to health care. Nolan has always favored single-payer. Bonoff voted to create MNsure. Ms. Craig said that she'd "fight to expand" Obamacare:
Seriously? Why would a sane person "fight to expand" this disaster? This gentleman and his wife are the perfect illustration, not that it's a positive thing, of a couple trapped in the middle class squeeze. In addition to their out-of-pocket expenses for health care, it isn't a stretch to think that they'll have to pay $20,000-$30,000 a year in income and property taxes.
Thanks to Obamacare, this couple will have little take-home pay left to do anything, much less save for retirement or for their kids' college education. It's time to rip this plan down and start fresh, preferably with something similar to the plan proposed by Senate Republicans .
The trio of Bonoff, Craig and Nolan have a) created this disaster, b) want to expand this disaster and c) wants government in total control of health care respectively. That's something Minnesotans can't afford.
Originally posted Thursday, October 13, 2016, revised 18-Oct 1:21 AM
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DFL's desperate deflection
The DFL is caught in a difficult position thanks to Gov. Dayton's statement that the ACA, aka Obamacare, isn't affordable for Minnesotans buying health insurance through the individual market. That's a difficult position for the DFL to be in because they enthusiastically supported it when it first came out. Now that some Minnesotans are forced into health insurance policies that carry as much as $35,000 in yearly out-of-pocket expenses for a married couple, the DFL is in a difficult position.
They've decided that their best tactic in this situation is to deflect attention from the disaster they created by trying to tie Republicans to Donald Trump. Angie Craig is one of those DFL candidates caught squirming by Gov. Dayton's statements. That's because she's caught on videotape saying that she'll "fight to expand" Obamacare .
This essentially comes down to whether voters will be turned off by a candidate who endorsed his party's presidential nominee or whether they'll be more turned off by a candidate who wants to expand a health insurance disaster. I'm betting that the sane-thinking individuals of Minnesota's Second District will reject the candidate that wants to expand Obamacare's nightmares.
This post highlights the fact that Ms. Craig hasn't gained traction:
Conversely, after spending $1.7 million to date on TV ads, Craig has just 57% name ID in the district and only 23% of voters have a favorable view of her. This leaves ample room for Craig to be introduced to the district as the left-wing ideologue she really is, as the NRCC has begun to do this week with our first ad .
Here's the ad:
Here's the transcript for the ad:
Announcer:
On Obamacare: Angie Craig's going big. Pushing to expand Obamacare even further:
Angie Craig: "I would fight: to expand the Affordable Care Act."
Announcer:
A big blow to middle class Minnesotans. Huge premium increases, up to sixty-seven percent higher. Catastrophic damage - Angie Craig would make it worse. Yet Craig pushed to get her own industry a special exemption from Obamacare taxes. Angie Craig: Big profits for her, a big disaster for us.
Clearly, Ms. Craig is a prolific fundraiser who's simply a terrible fit for MN-02. Simply put, she's the Second District's Tarryl Clark. Tarryl was a rising star in the DFL until 2010. Then she ran for the US House from Minnesota's 6th District. She lost to Michele Bachmann by 14 points.
Posted Thursday, October 13, 2016 12:22 PM
Comment 1 by MplsSteve at 13-Oct-16 02:16 PM
Has anyone heard any polling, news, etc out of the 2nd District?
I've seen Craig's ads on TV but nothing from Jason Lewis.
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 16-Oct-16 11:21 AM
KSTP just announced that they'll have polling out for MN-2 Monday night & MN-3 tonight.
Comment 2 by eric z at 21-Oct-16 01:33 PM
http://theuptake.org/2016/10/16/angie-craig-and-jason-lewis-debate-on-almanac-full-video-and-transcript/
For those caring, that's the link to the Oct. 16 Uptake video-and-transcript posting of Craig outdebating Lewis.
Opinions may differ. I pick Craig, without having viewed it . . .
Comment 3 by Chad Q at 21-Oct-16 06:08 PM
Well knock me over with a feather that one progressive would side with another without even having seen the debate.
DFL, Dayton ruined a great thing
The first sign that Obamacare was a disaster was Gov. Dayton admitting that it wasn't affordable anymore, which I wrote about here . That's the type of thing people don't expect from Obamacare's biggest cheerleader right before the election. The explanation is that it's so obvious to everyone that Gov. Dayton didn't have a choice in the matter.
The DFL's political problem is tied directly to the DFL's ideological problem, namely that the DFL's quest for a single-payer system is thwarted by Minnesota's history of having one of the highest insured rates in the nation. This 2008 report from the Rockefeller Institute of Government and New York State Health Foundation shows how efficient Minnesota was in insuring its people.
The key paragraph in the report states "According to data from the March Supplement of the Current Population Survey, Minnesota's rate of uninsurance was 8.6% for 2005/2006, lower than the national insurance rate of 15.5%. (During the same time, New York's uninsurance rate fell in between at 13.5%.) A very recent state survey on health insurance coverage in Minnesota found that the uninsurance rate in 2007 was 7.2%, which remained statistically unchanged from 2004 (7.7%), when the state survey was last conducted."
In other words, 92.8% of Minnesotans were insured before then-Sen. Obama was even elected. What's more is that 50% of those who were uninsured were eligible for taxpayer-subsidized health insurance of one sort or another. When you add those figures up, 96.4% of Minnesotans were either insured or were eligible for taxpayer-subsidized insurance.
Summarizing, that meant the DFL demolished a system that insured virtually everyone and replaced it with a system that's raised premiums by 30%-67% annually while virtually not increasing the percentage of insured Minnesotans. Ed Morrissey nails it with this commentary :
Democrats have recently taken to whining that Republicans refuse to act to save ObamaCare, but Democrats keep forgetting that they passed this all on their own at the national level, too. Republicans warned repeatedly of the outcomes we now see from the ACA, while Democrats insisted that it would all run perfectly well and that critics were just scaremongers looking to score partisan points. Now they want Republicans to come to their rescue, rather than agree to scrap the program and start over.
This is video of Gov. Dayton admitting what Republicans have said from the start:
During his interview with WCCO, Speaker Kurt Daudt didn't attempt to tell Gov. Dayton 'I told you so' or rub Gov Dayton's nose in it. Rather, he said that it's time for Republican and DFL legislators to work together to fix this crisis. That's exactly the right approach, especially considering the fact that Gov. Dayton still has 2 years left in office.
Finally, it isn't a stretch to think that whoever is elected president will have to address this immediately. State-run exchanges are dropping like flies. Insurance premiums are skyrocketing. Thanks to Sen. Rubio's bill, the insurance company bailouts have been stopped permanently. Without the bailouts, the next president won't have any wiggle room. That president will have to negotiate in good faith or the American people, mostly in small businesses will turn on him or, God forbid, her.
Originally posted Thursday, October 13, 2016, revised 15-Oct 7:14 AM
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NRCC's Craig ad rings true
Yesterday, I wrote this post to highlight the NRCC's first ad criticizing Angie Craig for saying she'd "fight to expand the Affordable Care Act." Ms. Craig made that statement during a January interview with KSTP's Tom Hauser. Last night, Hauser reviewed the ad as part of his Truth Test fact-checking series.
During his evaluation, Hauser said "It is true Craig favors expanding the Affordable Care Act. The ad edits her sound bite from 'At Issue' on January 31st, but it does not change the accuracy or context. Here's exactly what she said: 'I would fight to make sure that we continue to look for more ways to expand the Affordable Care Act and insure more Americans.'"
Later, Hauser talked about how the company Craig was employed by got special tax treatment. Specifically, he said "The ad also says Craig's former employer, St. Jude Medical, spent $770,000 in 2015 lobbying Congress to help 'get her own industry a special exemption from Obamacare taxes.'" Hauser replied "It is true Craig's company donated money to several members of Congress through it's political action committee. In 2015 Congress passed a two-year suspension of the medical device tax which had been used to help finance the Affordable Care Act. Craig once served on the PAC's board."
The final verdict on the ad is devastating:
This ad sticks mostly to accurate statement of facts and accurate use of a quote with just some exaggeration. It gets an A-minus on the "Truth Test."
The important point in this is that Ms. Craig's on the record as saying she wants to expand a program that her uber-liberal governor just said is unaffordable. If this had happened 6 months before the election, Ms. Craig might've been able to ride out this particular storm, then get back to her campaign.
Coming while no-excuse voting is just getting started is likely devastating. While it's true that this only affects people employed by small businesses or small business owners, that's a politically powerful group that's politically attuned. This ad got their attention right before the election.
Posted Friday, October 14, 2016 4:06 AM
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SC Times undermines School Board
Thank God for Jenny Berg's article on enrollment in St. Cloud's elementary schools. According to Ms. Berg's article, "This year, 534 fewer students are enrolled in kindergarten through sixth grade. Kevin Januszewski, executive director of business services, said some of the change is due to students moving to a different district or state. But some students also left public schools to attend charter schools ." Further, the article states that "The district's total enrollment is down by 276 students - about 2.7 percent - bringing the total enrollment to 9,881 students."
In this post, I noted that Apollo had the capacity to hold 2,400 students when the district offices didn't take up a significant portion of Apollo's space. Let's shrink Tech and Apollo's enrollment by 2.7% even though it will be more than that within 10 years. That brings total enrollment down to 2,640 students. Are we really going to build a state-of-the-art new high school for 250 students, especially when the cost of that state-of-the-art school will exceed $100,000,000?
The ISD 742 School Board is tax-happy and fiscally irresponsible. If they want to spend $100,000,000 because Apollo doesn't have the capacity to hold 250 students, then it's legitimate to say that the ISD 742 School Board is fiscally irresponsible and utterly incompetent.
The solution to this insanity is to vote to reject the bonding referendum, then elect a voice of sanity to the board so the people are heard. Once those immediate needs are accomplished, then we can start from scratch by asking the right questions. (Think questions like whether we need a bigger building. Hint: We don't.)
This article further undercuts the School Board's argument that we need to spend $104,500,000 on a new Tech HS. With enrollment dropping, their argument now has to shift to being 'renovating Apollo isn't good enough.' Getting people to vote to spend $104,500,000 on a school that they don't need and will never need is foolish in the extreme.
Posted Friday, October 14, 2016 9:37 AM
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MNsure's imminent collapse
When Gov. Dayton said that "the Affordable Care Act is no longer affordable for many Minnesotans", he stated the obvious. During his interview with Ed Morrissey, which I consider must viewing for every GOP candidate, Speaker Kurt Daudt highlighted MNsure's deficiencies.
Speaker Daudt spoke of a farming family he met during a MNsure listening session in Red Wing, MN, who told Speaker Daudt that their premiums this year were $2,300/mo. Then Speaker Daudt said that this family's deductible for this year was an additional $13,000 this year. This family's out-of-pocket expenses, which they'd pay before the insurance would pay a penny, was over $40,000.
As shocking as that was, the next part was frightening. Speaker Daudt said that that was this family's premiums before this year's open enrollment premium increases of between 50% and 67% . That means, at minimum, this family's premiums for 2017 would exceed $41,000. If their premium increased by 67%, this family's premiums for 2017 would jump to $46,000. That's one year's premiums for a family of 3 healthy people.
In this op-ed , Speaker Daudt said something important:
It's important to remember those promises because Democrats' primary solution to the current crisis is to keep pouring money into MNsure, at least $400,000,000 of taxpayer money to date, raise taxes on healthcare, and add more Minnesotans to public health insurance.
This is the other thing that Speaker Daudt said:
Third, we need long-term stability and competition. While options are constrained by the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare, we can employ creative solutions that stabilize the individual market and lower costs either through portable premium assistance for consumers or a reinsurance program similar in purpose to the former Minnesota Comprehensive Health Association.
In other words, Speaker Daudt recommends returning to what was working prior to the Obamacare disaster. In light of this existing disaster, why shouldn't the legislature return us to a system that gave Minnesota one of the highest, if not the highest, rates of people who are insured and that had some of the lowest health insurance premiums in the nation? Those rates were among the most stable in the nation, too.
This interview is must viewing for understanding how we reached this point:
Originally posted Saturday, October 15, 2016, revised 01-Jan 12:18 PM
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Rejecting Dayton, DFL, failure
There's no sugar-coating things. Gov. Dayton's time in office has been disastrous. He's raised the pay of his mediocre commissioners. He's appointed environmental activists to high-profile regulatory positions. Most importantly, he signed MNsure into law.
Now Gov. Dayton is actively campaigning to have an all DFL majority in the legislature. Apparently, he wants to drive Minnesota totally into the ground. He's already shown that he puts a higher priority on light rail projects than he's put on fixing Minnesota's most dangerous highways. He's vetoed a middle class tax cut package just because he wanted to pressure Republicans into funding the SWLRT project.
Thanks to MNsure, family farmers are getting hit with massive health insurance premium increases. One family farmer from the Red Wing area paid $2,300/month this year with a huge $13,000 deductible for the 3-person family. That's $40,000 out of that farming family's budget before they get their first penny of benefit from the insurance company.
The last time Gov. Dayton had a DFL legislature to work with, they gave small businesses a massive tax increase. They gave Minnesotans MNsure, too. They tried forcing small businesses into a public employee union (AFSCME). If that wasn't enough, they gave the Senate a $90,000,000 office building.
Just ask yourself this simple question: how many of those things were high priorities for you and your family? Personally, none of those things were priorities for me. The equation is simple. I won't vote for the DFL because their priorities aren't my priorities.
Obamacare is collapsing all across the nation. It's so bad that Bill Clinton called it "the craziest thing" he's ever seen, adding that it's hurting small businesses who make to much to qualify for Obamacare subsidies. He's right. It's killing small businesses. Gov. Dayton even admitted that the Affordable Care Act isn't affordable anymore:
DFL control would allow him to pursue additional money for universal preschool, water quality improvements and a robust package of public construction projects, Dayton said in an interview. He warned that Republican control would bring another round of "legislative paralysis."
What Gov. Dayton didn't say is most important. DFL majorities in the legislature would give them the ability to implement a single-payer health care plan. Minnesota's health care industry, which once was the envy of the nation, is teetering on the brink of disaster. Single-payer would make things worse by putting price controls on health care. That would lead to doctors quitting. Hospitals would shut down. Networks would get smaller. Drug companies would stop doing business in Minnesota.
That's what happens when profits disappear. It's inevitable. It's utterly predictable.
Simply put, rejecting the DFL's agenda is the only sane thing to do.
Posted Sunday, October 16, 2016 12:24 AM
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DFL MNsure statements: then vs. now
Intentionally, Democrats in the US House of Representatives and the US Senate created Obamacare without a single Republican vote. They didn't want any Republican votes because they didn't want any Republican ideas. Likewise, DFL legislators in the Minnesota House of Representatives and Minnesota State Senate rejected every amendment that Republicans offered. They didn't want any GOP ideas 'soiling' their plan.
Now that virtually every state exchange is collapsing, including Minnesota's, DC Democrats and DFL legislators are whining that Republicans haven't rescued them from the mess that they created by themselves. For instance, this article highlights this whining. Specifically, Don Davis wrote that "Dayton still supports the federal law. And he blamed congressional Republicans for refusing to take action to fix its flaws."
The DFL, with Gov. Dayton acting as their chief cheerleader, enthusiastically created MNsure without a single Republican vote. This article by the St. Paul Pioneer Press's Christopher Snowbeck, highlighted the DFL legislators' congratulatory statements.
First, Snowbeck quoted Gov. Dayton as saying "This is not meant to serve the insurance industry, or any industry." Next, Snowbeck quoted Sen. Tony Lourey, the chief author of the bill in the Senate, as saying " The people won on this bill ." It's doubtful that Sen. Lourey would repeat that today.
Joe Atkins said " This truly is a landmark day in Minnesota. This is the most significant reform of health insurance we've seen in Minnesota in 50 years ." Atkins was a co-sponsor of the bill in the House.
It's important to note that, contrary to Gov. Dayton's statement, Republicans have offered solutions to this crisis. It's just that the DFL governor, like the DFL legislators at the time, have reflexively rejected the Republicans' plans. Since Gov. Dayton's statement that "the Affordable Care Act is no longer affordable" to many Minnesotans, Senate Republicans put together a detailed plan to fix the crisis.
Even now, some DFL legislators aren't admitting that they created a problem :
[Rep. Paul] Marquart said MNsure is a good program that needs help. To fix it, the state may need to bring back its high-risk insurance pool, he said.
That isn't a fix. That's a full reversal. It's a return to what Minnesota had before the MNsure crisis.
It isn't likely that Sen. Skoe will be a senator when the 2017 session opens, partially because he helped create MNsure, partially because he fought for the SWLRT project rather than fighting for tax relief for his constituents.
DFL Sen. Rod Skoe of Clearbrook said MNsure needs to be fixed, not eliminated. "The cost of health insurance is driven by the cost of health care," he said. But the administrative cost of many insurance plans is approaching 30 percent, which is too high, he added.
In summation, Gov. Dayton's criticism of Republicans is ill-informed or misguided. Republicans have offered solutions. It's just that the DFL hasn't liked the solutions because Republicans essentially said that the fix was to replace Obamacare with what had worked prior to Obamacare.
Posted Sunday, October 16, 2016 8:31 AM
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Senate DFL MNsure reforms?
After Gov. Dayton admitted that "the Affordable Care Act isn't affordable anymore", DFL legislators have been scrambling to undo the political damage caused by Gov. Dayton's gaffe. It's important to remember that the definition of a political gaffe, according to Michael Kinsley, is accidentally telling the truth. In that context, the Senate DFL is pretending that they've offered real solutions to fix the MNsure crisis. They actually haven't proposed long-term solutions. This article highlights the Senate DFL's non-solutions.
DFL Sen. Lourey, the chief author of the MNsure bill in the Senate, said "I've heard many proposals from Republicans over the past few weeks that sound very familiar. And they are familiar because we held hearings on these bills last session. From introducing a new tax credit to make premiums more affordable, to expanding MinnesotaCare and allowing all Minnesotans the option to purchase this more affordable coverage - we have offered up numerous money-saving plans that, had Republicans been willing to work with us, would have helped avert some of our current problems, rather than react as we are now."
A tax credit sounds great -- as a temporary fix. It isn't a solution because insurance companies are still losing tens of millions of dollars. That's why they're dropping out of MNsure and dropping out of the other exchanges across the US. This is a list of legislation that the DFL proposed to fix this MNsure crisis:
Studying the benefits of creating a high-risk insurance pool is the closest thing the Senate DFL comes to providing a solution. Even that isn't a solution, though, because it wouldn't create a high-risk pool. It just studies the benefits of creating a high-risk pool. It's like the difference between saving a drowning child and debating whether to save a drowning child.
Re-instating MCHA, Minnesota's high-risk pool, would solve most of MNsure's problems. First, insurance companies wouldn't continue to lose millions of dollars. They might even make a profit, which would stop the rapid exodus from MNsure. That, in turn, would give families more health insurance options and more stable prices for healthy families.
DFL Sen. Jeffrey Hayden said this:
Shame on Republicans. They have spent years doing everything they can to tear down MNsure. Not once have they been a part of a constructive conversation about how to make changes and find solutions to lower costs. Now that premium hikes have gone up 50 percent and health insurance companies are pulling out of our individual market; they act horrified and offer ways to help.
It's disgusting that Sen. Hayden can't be truthful. First, Republicans have offered one solution to this crisis after another. The DFL consistently rejected those solutions. That's verifiable fact. Next, the DFL insisted that MNsure would work.
At the MNsure bill signing ceremony, DFL Sen. Tony Lourey said that the "people won on this bill." Rep. Joe Atkins said "This truly is a landmark day in Minnesota. This is the most significant reform of health insurance we've seen in Minnesota in 50 years."
In other words, DFL legislators initially insisted that Republicans were playing politics with MNsure. Now that the DFL's plan has blown up in their faces, they're demanding that Republicans had an obligation to fix something the DFL insisted wasn't broke .
Finally, Gov. Dayton was a huge cheerleader for MNsure. Had a Republican bill gotten to Gov. Dayton's desk, which wasn't likely, Gov. Dayton would've vetoed the bill just like he pocket vetoed the Republicans' middle class tax relief bill. Simply put, the DFL was wrong about MNsure from the start. Republicans were right about MNsure from the start. Why would voters vote to put the DFL in charge of fixing the thing they broke in the first place? That's as stupid, metaphorically speaking, as having a drunk driver serve as the designated driver. Nothing good can come of it.
Posted Sunday, October 16, 2016 11:13 AM
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